I said yes to living inside a house where cameras watched me 24 hours a day. Microphones dangled above my head as I slept while I was being observed in real time by strangers. The stakes were high; there was the potential of a life-altering cash prize.

There was also the looming possibility that me being the first Black woman to win Big Brother would make history—all at a particularly fraught time in our country's understanding of race and equity.