MIAMI — Writer Jonathan Escoffery left Miami 11 years ago, but the city, as it often does, lingers in his memory. Partly because he still has family in town. Partly because his feelings about growing up as the son of Jamaican immigrants in Cutler Ridge, now Cutler Bay, are complicated.
To Escoffery, Miami is a rich source of inspiration. But he also says that it’s the only place he has lived where people have told him: “I don’t really like Black people, but you seem OK.”
“I’ve lived in the South, in Boston, in Minneapolis, and I think Miami is the most anti-Black place I’ve ever lived,” says Escoffery, who is currently living in Oakland, California. “It’s not the only place where this kind of racism is going on, but in Miami there’s just this ease with which it’s communicated. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”
