My parents wanted me to be a citizen of the world so they gave me a French name and enrolled me in a bilingual school when I was ten.  They hoped that proficiency in French would open the doors of liberty, equality and fraternity for me.  My language skills finally paid off in December 2016 when La Ligue des droits de l’homme (a human rights organization) invited me to speak at their December 10th conference honoring the 68th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man in Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France in the eastern Caribbean.  The topic of the event was police violence against African American citizens.