I’ve been constructing and deconstructing this in my head for a while now, since I started being called racist, divisive, and radicalized. In 2017 just as in 2016 I lost friends and had a number of my friends both current and former express concern. It seems folks want to put me into the categories of brainwashed, traumatized, divisive, or playing victim so this is my response to that:
I would like to start this off by saying I don’t judge anyone for their choices I only judge myself for the acceptance of and the anti-blackness I personally have displayed and harboured. I can recall as a child being told some crazy stories but the main events that stick out for me let’s start on the most personal with regards to my looks “stay in the shade” “oh you get soo dark” “look at your hair it looks like a Black girls” “your hair is nappy” “why are your lips so big” then there was the time I talked about my friend Tatiana in first grade and my father said you can have your friends at school but I don’t want to hear about your friend Tatiana at home. I recall my grandma saying never say the n word because it means ignorant and you don’t call anyone ignorant. I also remember being told you aren’t better than anyone but Black people are different from us you don’t date or procreate. These are the seeds of anti-blackness that were implanted in me at home. I remember the day I asked my grandmother “Gramma do you remember when they turned fire hoses on Black people is that true?” and her reply was “They did the same thing to us here and worse.” This is when I felt the need to take up causes only for brown people and only brown people like me. I never really fit in anywhere and I spent a lot of time reading as a kid at one of the hardest times in my adolescent years when the whole norm of my life for the last six years was on its way out my English teacher shared the poem Mother to Son by Langston Hughes the words of this poem spoke to me back then as they still do to this day when my life feels like its been too much and I just really want to say F^XK it all I remember that “…I’se been a climbin on, And reachin’ landin’s, And Turnin’ corners….” when I don’t want to have purpose I remember the words of Frank Withrow and he reminds me “To Be Somebody Should Be Your Goal”. The markets outside of the family still nurtured those anti-black seeds and when the roots got strong my disdain got stronger and went beyond being anti-black if it were ok to make blanket statements against one group then blanket statements could be made for other groups and so began my support of supremacy. I didn’t have to dawn a swastika or shout white power (I’m not white passing how could I right?) I made some pretty shitty statements of supremacy in the past you know how many people called me out on that? THREE my VERY white passing uncle’s were the only ones to call me out on my bullshit and of course, at first I thought they were full of it and unpatriotic then a fourth white man called me out on patriotism and the difference between patriotism and blind allegiance. So what changed what clicked it all back into place for me? There were lots of little things but what got me to put a stop to my supremacy thinking was the amount of translating I was doing at the preschool my children attended and then speaking to mothers with children in the local public k-8 and the lack of representation they felt at the site my older child was also attending. It was the struggle of my brown people that brought me back, it was mothers wanting what was best for their children and not being able to communicate that brought me back to this divisive person I am. Then Michael Brown died and I was at the gym watching the protest in Ferguson and I heard an older Black man feed into the narrative being spewed by the media and our President. I started attending more school meetings and seeing needs and some being met but more needing to be done. Alton Sterling died in front of my eyes and the biggest blow the next day I watched Philando Castille gasp his last breaths. I enrolled in my local community college intending ONLY on obtaining an AA so that my offspring cannot argue that their parents did not seek higher education so why should they. From there my eyes were opened to EVERY fallacy I had ever accepted. The World Music class I took over the summer was the final boost on this brainwashing and traumatization some of my friends speak of I came to the realization that the African diaspora worked with Indigenous people time and time again only to have dominant society shut them down. I support the Black community because society has done them very wrong because I too know what it is to work your ass off and never be good enough and only have more obstacles to face while putting in that work. You now have a rough outline of what brought me to this current state. You can call it whatever you want in my heart it feels right. If you can’t accept this if you have a problem with who I have “become” I tell you now its perfectly okay to not be a part of my life anymore and there will be no love lost between us. I always want what is best for you, but don’t disrespect me, if you don’t agree with me that is fine let us discuss but don’t put me in my place because that doesn’t work on me anymore there is no argument you can make that will make me complacent in supremacy, supremacy is the illness that got us to this place and if we fail to treat it we will never get better.
bellesbaubles 