So, I was listening to Dr. Umar discuss “learning disabilities’ ‘ and IEPs and childhood memories came to the surface. Although these memories were not buried or removed from my consciousness they were given little attention because they were very normalized within my mind. Part of that normalization was the fact that racism is so normalized that my story is hardly unusual, to the point that I found the stories barely significant. Another part of that normalization was the direct coaching that I received from my grandparents. My grandmother was very determined for me to attend a good “white” school; I won’t detail her actions here but she definitely was motivated and creative (but that is a whole ‘nother story). The first race discussion that I remember occurred when I was a few years old ( I was so young that I can’t remember my exact age but it was definitely before school) and my grandparents spoke a very cryptic message to me. See, my grandparents spoke in few words and subtleties so the conversation went something like “ Hey you see your momma?”me, “yeah,” “well your momma white…she’s not really white but she white. And you black,” me “my momma is white?” “she not really white but she white.” As an adult I finally learned to interpret the message that I was given. My mother is fair skinned; not fair enough to pass but fair enough to get quite light if she avoided the sun and thus she was fairly acceptable to white society and possibly viewed as an exotic experience…plus my mother was remarkably beautiful in her youth, so the combination of her fair skin and beauty bought her a “behavior pass” that would not be afforded to me. This conversation was the beginning of the preparation that my grandparents made for me to attend a white school and endure racism while emerging successfully.
As I continued to grow my grandparents had more conversations with me. Conversations such as “Them white folks are going to seem nice but you know they don’t like you, right” and “you know that white girl ain’t really your friend”…as a youth I didn’t understand the wisdom that they were trying to impart. Youth and general joviality led me to think that we could all come together, love each other, and sing kumbaya but my grandparents were attempting to caution me to the environment that I was being prepared to enter.
The first microaggression began in kindergarten. As a youth I was very studious, and thus I had over 100% in my class. Yes, I was that kid. However, in spite of my academic achievement I was very quiet, which is my nature unless I really know and trust you. For some reason this was alarming to my teacher. My mother was called into a meeting at the end of the school year where my teacher told her that (in spite of my high marks) I was not as socially developed as other students and it may be due to my youth ( I started school early, even had to take a test, lol) and she was recommending that I be held back in kindergarten and repeat. Now in my mind, I was simply being quiet and respectful within the classroom as I love learning. Plus, realistically the white children that I attended school with were not exactly warm and accepting of the black child within their midsts (I was one of four black children in my school, one of which was my cousin who lived in the same house as me, so to say that the school I attended was very white is an understatement.) Needless to say, mother bear was activated and my mother raised hell to ensure that I was promoted based on my marks and not held back based on social awkwardness (shout out to mom’s) and I successfully matriculated to the first grade.
In the first grade i had a very racist teacher, Ms. Charleston. To be fair, I had been warned about Ms. Charleston by my cousin, however I could not truly understand until I attended her class. Ms. Charleston assumed that I had difficulty reading in spite of my loquacious nature, and thus had me placed in the lowest reading group and then I was placed in an assisted reading group which removed me from the class. I attended these classes for a while with other children who needed additional assistance reading, however it soon became evident that I did not need additional help. There came a point where it became evident to my teacher that I did not need assistance reading so I was tested and placed back in the regular class. At the time I did not place much weight on this experience as I did not realize this as the microaggression that it was, but the experience was definitely impactful.
Later my school suddenly integrated self-esteem affirmations within the classroom. This struck my adult mind because I realized that programming was necessary because my teachers thought that I had low self esteem because I was not very talkative. While these sessions were beneficial and taught me self esteem, I now know that the logic behind the implementation was racist. Further, the school counselor began to work to “befriend” me. He found opportunities to approach me and let me know that it was okay to speak with him, which I did. Although he was very nice it seemed to me that he did not find the dysfunction that he expected within my mind. After a while he seemed more lackadaisical, although he maintained his open door policy. In fact, I began to build trust in my school counselor until a random girl in the lunchroom accused me of talking negatively about her; to be clear, I was not-I was discussing a skating party with my friends, and I noticed her staring at me so I looked back while continuing to speak with my friends, however I was later called into the counselors office and accused of talking bad about the girl- I championed my innocence but it was clear that the counselor did not believe me and he continued to make caveats for me to admit my wrong doing. At no point did he consider that this girl’s assessment was wrong; maybe she was emotionally imbalanced, or maybe she simply misinterpreted as she was a new student and maybe the culture and/or society that she came from was different, but that was not considered. There was an air that I was simply guilty and lying, and there was no further investigation into the situation, specifically the investigation through closeness that was imposed upon me. Although my grandparents’ tutelage crafted an understanding within me which allowed me to empathize with the counselor and understand what he may have thought, the relationship was irrevocably damaged and I did not continue to speak with the counselor on the level that I did previously.
`During my childhood there were various microaggressions that I was taught to ignore. I went from being labeled learning disabled to being labeled gifted and having frequent access to museums and cultural relics (in my elementary school, as part of the gifted program I had a blanket parental permission slip blanket which allowed me to go weekly to the Native American Museum where I learned about the horrors and atrocities that were visited upon the native populations, and true stories about how Native Americans were impacted and how they troy felt about colonialism. I learned about the unfair treaties, the treaties that were broken, the imbalanced power structures, and the true history of the native interactions with Europeans and how they were bamboozled and the results therein…I learned truths about how the Europeans destabilized the native populations, the lies they told, and the truth of the battles that they fought. Subsequently, I was and am difficult to tame. I see through B.S. although sometimes I grant space for ill meaning people to run their programming to fruition to see what is done and how those gains are achieved. I am still watching and waiting…eventually the truth will come to light.
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