CLEVELAND, Ohio — Spectrum News 1 brings you our Voices for Change series, where activists, leaders, and community members share what has brought them to action and how addressing racial discrimination will create a better world for everyone.
Arts & Entertainment columnist Troy Smith has been moved recently to write about race. And it’s personal. As a result, “anytime you write about race, it ignites the fire, good and bad… there’s a lot of change going on and there’s a lot of passion on both sides, so it can be a little overwhelming.”
A Cleveland man with a mixed heritage, Smith finds himself in a unique position during the current push for racial equality.
“With the protests and what happened to George Floyd, uh, I just felt kinda like there was a greater purpose for me to sort of start speaking out more about how I was feeling. You know, my mom was white, my dad’s Black, but I’m perceived as Black, but I’m married to a white woman. So my children are perceived as white. It was just really interesting to look at America through my eyes, through my parents’ eyes, through my children’s eyes now. It’s really a complex thing.”
