When I first met the man I would fall in love with, marry, and have a family with it never occurred to me that I was starting a journey that would give me a whole new view of racism. I determined years prior that I wanted to raise my children in Tulsa Oklahoma. I grew up in Tulsa, although I had lived in other places, Tulsa was home. It was a solid, relatively safe place to raise children.
At 23, I moved back to Tulsa from Houston Texas. I met a man who changed my life. He was funny, handsome, hard-working, caring, and Greek (Tulsa translation; white). Throughout our marriage, of 25 years, I was never asked by a white person why I married a “white man”, but my black people constantly asked me why I married a “white man”. The receptionist at a well-known hotel, who constantly continued to question if we were together.
The hints that I was a prostitute or paid escort. Waiters, or cashiers who would ask to assist my husband while totally ignoring my presence. The examples go on and on.
We learned to deal with it. One way we handled it was to find the funny in the ignorance. Once while dating, we went to Albertson’s grocery store on a Sunday afternoon when we knew the old crotchety, holier than thou, white church-going folk would be shopping.
The number of people that stopped with open-mouthed stares was hilarious. We saw people running carts into end caps or other shoppers while gaping at us. People would avoid the aisle we were on. It was the funniest, saddest, thing we saw and we laughed about it for years.
When our daughter was born, the issues were no longer just about us as in an interracial couple. We were an interracial couple with a biracial child. From the age of 3, we began to prepare our daughter, as best we could, for the world she would grow up in. I started by building her self-confidence in her abilities apart from any one race.
I had hard conversations with her as she grew up about people not liking her because she was “light-skinned” with “good hair” 2 indications in the black community that she was “mixed”. Sadly, we role-played scenarios and her response to people's actions, and words.
One particularly offensive act that still angers me to this day, happened when our daughter was in elementary school. She had gotten sick and the school called me to pick her up. Her dad was off work so I asked him to pick her up. The school refused to let him take her from school.
They did not believe he was her dad! He produced ID, his name was on her school registration form "as authorized" to pick her up. Despite all this, the school refused to let our sick daughter go home with her biological dad….until the Angry Black Woman we have heard about showed up! My husband took our baby home, while I tore the Black principal a new one.
The school board was notified. There were written reprimands on file for the school clerk and the principal. Changes were made to help educate staff about children and parents of different races.
My husband, daughter and I talked about moving her from that school, leaving the decision up to our daughter. She stayed at the school and gained the support of the principal and another teacher. We did not want her to run from bias and ignorance but wanted her to see she could change attitudes and behaviors by addressing the wrong attitudes and misconceptions.
When I think back to the ’70s and its racial unrest, then I see the same tension and unrest today, it is easy to believe that nothing much has changed. I refuse to believe that humanity is no better than Minneapolis, Colorado Springs, Tulsa, and its murders, riots, and hatred. Nothing will change until we change my Sisters. Let's begin by taking responsibility for our little corner of the world. Let's start by not laughing at the jokes that put any of us down.
Let's start by sharing our talents, spirit, and love with those in our homes, next door, on our jobs, at the grocery store. Let's determine to make 1 person’s day better with a smile, a kind word, a heartfelt gesture.
JUNE CHALLENGE: Show "Sister" love to one person not related to you, this month. Post a comment or pic of this on our FB wall! If we receive enough photos we will post another Photo Gallery on our website!
Love you.. and remember, you can always Call Your Sister!
Comentarios