Moving in Quick sand

I've voted for candidates who've not won before.  I have accepted defeat with a few tears and resolve.  I have felt ready to face it all again four years later because I have believed that even if everyone did not think as I did (and I have never been myopic enough to think they did so) that we, Americans, THAT WE, had agreed upon everyone's right to at least live in their own space in their own peace even if we (or I) longed for us to reach a greater love and understanding of one another.  I'd taken comfort that though I suspected/knew that behind closed doors there was a good deal of racist and sexist banter going on in the White House and cabinet of presidents in which I held little faith, I expected they'd at least try to hide their shameful behavior and policies with rhetoric and not come right out and assault us with hate.  And I wasn't afraid of them.

I can't lie.  I have always anticipated some level of racism from my fellow Americans, white Americans, and am always pleasantly surprised when someone shows me otherwise.  I listen to the stories they choose to tell, choose to share with me and the rest of the world and cull tiny messages, read the pinpoints on their maps to know if deep down or perhaps on the surface, they don't or can't fully respect me and my experience.  Somehow the shame was mine, that I suspected that I should do more, be more or less, convince them by contorting myself, my beliefs, my strong voice, my thick legs, my alarming sexuality, my very blackness, that I should be smaller in the world so that they might be able to live in a world that had me in it.  Even I allowed that the world, that America, did not belong to me and was thankful for every small mercy that showed me differently.

For every friend who told me of their racist auntie, of their schools where no people of color attended, of their churches, towns, teams, and other organizations in which they participated without ever seeing a black person, I winced and then offered some level of comfort to them.  Well, you are here now.  You are part of this diverse community.  That counts.  And sure.  It does.  It does.

When I was a girl, I saw the world through the low-res footage of the Polaroid camera and loved looking at the world in the black and white of my parents' and grandparents' "olden days."  Their pictures fascinated me because everyone looked so young and beautiful but the tales they told of the time, the parts of the tales that had to do with white people, were violent and bleak and terrifying.  The Civil Rights Era was not just part of history, tales made flat and two-dimensional by the textbook, but the stories told by my family, the young, beautiful family of a time that the United States of America was truly black and white and all shadows.  I lived among white people in a nearly completely white community and lived my life every day with a pinch of fear.  I knew that even in the face of good, kind, supportive white people, I'd better be sure that someone of color, someone who "knew" would have my back up front.

I was ashamed of this, ashamed that I distrusted, that I was not letting love in my heart, that I was not turning the other cheek.  I'd always felt that the burden was on me to prove myself open, easy-going, and cool.  I tried to let microaggressions and judgments roll off me, not let the blood rush to my cheeks.  Defused offenses with laughter, assault with excuses, ignorance with forgiveness -- "they know not what they do."

But I still held my breath.  I held my breath because I knew that it was just a matter of time before someone revealed that they weren't as down for my cause as they'd hoped.  Held my breath because I knew I might meet their mother/father/grandmother/auntie/cousin/friend/neighbor who said shit like, "that neighborhood is full of n****s not good black people like you," and I wouldn't know how to respond.  Because I was twelve.  Held my breath because someone would tell me that they didn't understand why all the other black kids were in different classes and not in the advanced classes with me.  Held my breath because someone wanted me to know that they just didn't find black girls attractive or black people attentive or able to swim or couldn't get lice or whatever it was they'd heard.  Held my breath when, though in the top ten percent of my class, lesser students dared tell me that I'd surely get into the college of my choice because of affirmative action and wanted me to agree to as much.  Held my breath because the cute boy told me that he really liked me but that his grandmother would roll over if he came home with a black girl and I felt badly for HIM.  Held my breath because sometimes it was all too much and the short breaths were all I could take in without letting my emotions seep out.

First there are tears and then there is rage!  And I learned that it was the rage, the rage that scared everyone off.  Even your allies couldn't stand for your rage.  Your family, your friends, the people who were trying to love you in their own way, to study you, understand you, who longed for whatever it was that being a black girl meant to them, turned from your rage.  It revealed too much.  Too much of the pain behind your forgiveness, behind your memories, behind your hope.  So you channeled it.  Made the world.  Held it up.  Shone the lights.  Held your breath.  Sucked it in with your head high, eyes focused, became a pillar, face tight with smiles but the heart pumping blood, veins and vessels pounding, eyes blinking, lashes fluttering, cool breaths sucked in and out through your lips.

Simmering, a slow boil and each assault or insult, each death called us from against the wall and whispered, "you'd better let it out or it'll blow."  Heat flushed our ears and our cheeks and we were at first embarrassed, humiliated, scared, and then the rage.  The rage came and poured like lava melting the glossy papered image of what we were expected to be into something harder to identify.  Our beautiful black friends staring past us, the invitation standing to join but no more asking or pleading.  Get on or get off.  And we wanted everyone on board.  We all did. WE did--the blacks, non-whites, immigrant, Muslim, LGBTQ, disabled, the intersected of all these groups--we want you on board.  Without you, your racist/sexist/bigoted/homophobic/cruel/apathetic mother/father/auntie/uncle/friend/cousin/neighbor will never hear another side to their fear-mongering, hateful rhetoric or their privileged denials and apathy.  They have already chosen not to believe me, not to believe us.  While I "may not be like the others,"  I still can't shake my otherness.  You must go in for me.

Listening at the foot of my grandmother in her front sitting room to the tales of a defiant great-granddad and seeing him in his black and white, youthful glory, seeing the uncles in their overalls who stood across the street from the little soda shop/cafeteria that was segregated while their nephews and sons attempted a sit in in white, short-sleeved button downs, and slacks.  Pouring over photos of our parents in large Afros and sideburns, wide collars, and short skirts.  Seeing our photos become clean and Kodakchromed and colored as our friendship barrettes and hoop earrings, lightening bolted enamel pins and designer jeans came into fashion.  Seeing the events of our nation unfold in real time in moving pictures in social media.  We are here.  You must go for us.

When I was a girl I was afraid of stray dogs because I didn't believe they'd listen to my command to stop.  I was afraid of quicksand because it looked like regular ground until you were deep in it and then it just might be too late.  I was afraid of someone disrespecting or challenging my family because I believed they'd already been through enough and didn't want to see them wounded or have them face me having been.  And I was terrified of someone calling me "nigger," "blackie," "brown sugar" in mixed company not only because it would burn my heart and rise up in my cheeks and my ears and force my tears, but because I was afraid to know just who would and would not stand for me.  

Those Kodak pictures from that time show me in my youth already navigating the world's mines and expecting that I might blow up first.  That little girl had hope but low expectations for others for whom supporting and loving her might be a burden, might even put them in harm's way.  That little girl learned to accept defeats that were altogether unfair, more than likely biased, and influenced by a society that valued her less than all the white children that surrounded her.  It is with shock but not complete surprise that a raging, narcissistic, racist, sexist, bigoted, misogynistic blowhard has been elected president.  It is the culmination of all my fears.  It is the ground made quick sand.  It is a stray dog jumping up and putting its paws on my shoulders looking like he might bite my face.  It is embarrassing the legacy of my hard-working, well-educated, dedicated, God-fearing, loving family and all the sacrifices they made to get me to my basic rights.  It is being called "nigger" or watching my friends cursed and assaulted because they are gay or Muslim or Hindi or Sikh (because please don't know the difference) or in a mixed relationship or disabled or a woman, strong or meek, or poor or uneducated or not quite what America had in mind when they narrowed their definition of "American."

When Al Gore and John Kerry conceded I felt deflated.  I'd had faith in their abilities to lead, to govern, to be fair and inclusive.  I felt that even if they could not ever meet or even understand the needs of my community and the communities of those I love, but I thought they might try.  I thought they wanted to understand, that they wanted to unify.  I was afraid of the machine that Ronald Reagan and the Bushes drove over communities I loved.  But what I feel now is terror.  Absolute fear.  I stare at my old class pictures, run my fingers over the old faces of friends, classmates, people who have said how much they love me, care for me, enjoyed our friendships who have voted against my very right to live as they'd like to live.  We are sinking.  That quicksand catches you and takes down slowly.  What happens is that we suffocate and drown and don't even know we've gone down.  And we all go down.


(c) Copyright 2016.  Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.

Tip of the iceberg: An average life

This is how I feel right now.  I am in 9th grade reading Huckleberry Finn with my class and each time they call Jim a nigger, I cringe.  And it's said over and over.  Many look at me sympathetically, shrug their shoulders, some even touch me on the arm if they are close enough because we all know, no matter how we all long for the adventure, that poor, ol' Jim and I have more in common than Huck and me.  I don't deny that most feel uncomfortable with the language that is explained away with a "that's how people spoke of black folks at that time" but when we move on to "A Farewell to Arms" everyone else can drop their shame, their melancholy, longing for the expectation that I have forgiven this past and that "we've come a long way, baby" and get back to modern living.

But I see Jim and I know him because, though you may be looking at me and seeing an upper middle class, well-educated, articulate, funny, put together (at times) African-American (I prefer Black) woman with a handsome, French husband and two beautiful mixed kids, I come from a long line where Jim and folks like him are roots on my tree.  I am, as the expression goes, the tip of the iceberg, but under the surface is a lineage of survivors and thrivers, former slaves and slavers.  We are mixed by choice and very often not.  I spent my early years and my summers on the front porch of my grandparents' home at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.  Though I lived in a white neighborhood in New Jersey and believed myself assimilated, I sat at the feet of my grands and great-grands and heard about racism firsthand.  Not just being called "nigger" or "blackie" or "brown sugar" by white kids testing their power and position in the wide streets of the suburbs, but pervasive, oppressive, strangulating cruelty that only served to threaten and stunt the mental, emotional, spiritual, and social growth of black people.  These were not stories or headlines.  These tales were the lives of my family and my ancestors.  No matter where I am in the world, this is the ground beneath me.

I did not grow up the way many envision black people growing up.  Not because it is so rare but because you don't know us.  And if you do, really do, then I am not talking to you, but I would venture to guess that you don't really.  I dream of a life that is banal, no more exciting or charged than that of anyone else, maybe even the default.  The life you think of when you think of every day life.  And then I wake up and remember that I am black.  That I am a black, sensitive, creative woman who, by nature of being black in America, cannot live an average life.  That my life is meant to define, describe, explain, assuage, and calm the feelings of other citizens allowed to live their mundane lives while mine is fraught with symbolism and metaphor and hyperbole.

My grandmother told me often that she wanted better for me, for all of us, was grateful for what she'd seen us achieve in such a short amount of time, hoped that "white people were fair and good" to us. There was palpable fear and doubt, but also hope.  I wanted to tell her, to show her that all her suffering and her efforts had not been in vain, that we were advancing.  That the rapes, assaults, laws, white supremacy, and pervasive and accepted racism were seen as the horrors they were, were being put firmly in the past, and that WE were being seen for the "content of our character."  And the advancement of our family specifically was tied to our advancement as black people in America collectively.  Many black families will tell you the same. For us to be able to just be average, regular, unspectacular, under the radar, just living our lives gave her hope.  It was the tip of the iceberg.  She was sure we'd overcome.  I carried that hope for her.

There were small things that reminded me we hadn't come as far as I'd hoped.  My father getting followed home by the police on a morning run.  People assuming he was a ball player because he drove a nice car.  Having a very hard time finding an apartment even with full time employment, good credit, and a clean record.  Having to consider that I had a clean record.  Listening to people tell me, when hearing my experience as a black woman in America that racism wasn't the problem but poverty and elitism.  Um, AND those too.  Having to qualify that though, yes, micro-aggressions were not the same as being beaten or killed in the street, dealing with them was still incredibly damaging to the psyche. Having someone, a "friend" write something about "hey, blacks, I've suffered too and look at me" on my Facebook wall in response to more proof of the systemic racism that prevails in our country.  Imagine trying to be part of a group or society or country but when the conch shell gets passed to you, everyone talks over you.  Tells you it's not your turn.  

If we meet you with rage, if we meet you with anger, you call us animals and beat us or pepper spray us or shoot us.  If we ask for a fair shake, an opportunity, a chance, you say we are angling for special privilege.  If we write stories or articles or blogs about our experiences on the outside, you say we, WE are the ones being divisive.  If we tell you we are hurting, we are tired, we are traumatized by the rhetoric, by the hatred, by the violence, the unrelenting insensitivity and ignorance, you say buck up. When innocent black men, women, and children are murdered, people who look like us, in epic abuses of power, and no justice comes on their behalf.  When we cry for them, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, cousins, friends, we are asked to consider why they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing.  We are told that if they'd just listened, behaved, respected the law and the policies that were not designed with them in mind, they might have lived another day to face it all again.   

This racist system is real and it's killing all of us.  Not just Black people, but our country.  It's not that we are a nation divided by black and white because that isn't true.  It wasn't then and it isn't now.  But racism, complacency, white privilege and its hideous cousin, white supremacy do threaten to tear us apart.  And everything that anyone finds great about this nation will crumble into the seas like the icebergs of white and blue and purple crumbling under the heat of global warming.  We are dying ever so slowly from a disease that feels impossible to stop.  We are sure it is going to overtake us, consume us.  It just might.  Like people suffering from illness, we can resign or we can fight it with all we have.  There is prayer, meditation, and there is love.  And love...

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  1 Corinthians 13

I don't deny it, I am sinking, melting into the sea, afraid I will never be solid again.  Each week, as I try to do what everyone else is doing, raising their children, trying to give them values and truths to uphold them, I am crying into the back of my hand, afraid to let them see what lies beneath the surface of their gleaming pyramid called life.  I held the hope for my grandmother and now I hold it for my daughters.  This conversation is just the start.  It's the tip of the iceberg but if we don't tend to it, we are bound to hit the parts below the surface and dash all our dreams of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for an average life made special by our content, by our character, by our cooperation, and by our love.

RIP to the victims of the cowardly act of terrorism in at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.


(c)  Copyright 2015.  Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.