When most people hear the word “racism” they picture a horrid situation in which a stranger is yelling obscene words and making rude gestures. What happens when the person is subliminally pushing messages to you and they are your FAMILY???
Today, I am going to share with you some things that occurred in my life. In an effort to become more transparent and to reach more people (who may need to feel comfort) I am choosing to discuss things that are hot button issues. The reason behind that is I experienced a magnitude of hateful things in this life and I want to release my pain and also help someone else in the process.
RACISM: Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.
Growing up bi-racial with a white, single-mom was already hard. It was hard for the normal reasons: staring in the store, questions like “is she adopted?”, unnecessary comments, the look of pity because of my absent father (who is no longer “absent” by the way). You get the picture.
However, my life took an abnormal turn when I was told that my grandparents had disowned my mother for having a child with a black man. As a teenager I had questioned my identity several times and this made that process even more difficult. I just couldn’t understand how someone could hate someone because of their skin color.
The closest I had come to racism prior to this knowledge was random people in the grocery store or movies on TV. Suddenly, it was right there in my face. It was an absolute and something that I couldn’t turn my face from or simply turn off the TV because I didn’t like it. I had to learn how to accept it..... or so I thought.
My grandparents entered my life around age 13. As if this isn’t the most confusing age ANYWAY!!! My grandmother’s way of showing love and apology was to buy things. I would get about $500 worth of school clothes and pretty much anything else I ever wanted. I quickly equated this to love and it was down hill from there.
After a few years of this I started to question the motive. I began to realize that if they still didn’t accept people of my color or my father that quite frankly, they didn’t accept me. It also didn’t help that they didn’t come around until my mother married a white man. The correlation was obvious.
At the age of 14 I started to hear things come from my mother. This was even more confusing, because I just knew she couldn’t possibly think like them. She had a mixed child so how in the world could she be a racist? Not knowing (or should I say acknowledging) that the comments were a form a racism was definitely a turning point in my life. I started to seriously question things.
I would hear comments like: “You only chose the ‘black’ side because you’re the cream of the crop over there. You make everyone in this house feel ‘different’ (please keep in mind my mom, step-dad, and brother are white). You’ve got good hair so there’s nothing to worry about”. The violence that ensued after the comments simply solidified my worst nightmares. The saddest part was I didn’t even know at the time what the comments meant.
When I was about 17 and starting to choose colleges I was still under the “spell” shall I say. So, I wanted to make my family proud of me. I decided to go to University of Charleston as a legacy scholar and pursue nursing in the foot steps of my grandmother. As things progressively got worse between my mother and I, I began to stand my ground regarding my race. My mother had divorced my step dad three years earlier and started dating black men again. My grandparents of course backed away.
When it was time to discuss how to pay for college my grandmother offered to pay for the entire tuition.... all four years. This was a defining moment for me because I declined. I told her that if she didn’t accept my father that she didn’t accept me and I could not accept the money. Everyone told me how stupid i was for that. $160,000 in debt later I certainly can see why they think that but I was holding on to something way more important than my education, MY DIGNITY.
After this, I battled with my mother for years until finally we just didn’t speak anymore. She has never seen her grandchildren (her choice) and we have no communication. It is sad, but I suppose a necessary evil seeing as her roots were truly disguised underneath a falsehood. It almost appears as insanity to me because she hated the very man that helped her create her child. This equates to hatred for the child in my eyes. She will deny that until she goes to her grave and also tell you that she does not see color. However, in a bright, colorful world this is an excuse that in my opinion exposes those who are STILL uncomfortable with color.
I get asked all the time how a mixed girl, raised by a white woman, with limited access to her black family becomes so pro-black and militant. This account of my life shows you why. I am more than my melanin, but my melanin is pretty poppin’ if you ask me!
I remember having a conversation with my grandmother later in life. I heard the hurt in her voice as she said, “I didn’t ask for my youngest son to kill himself, I didn’t ask for my other son’s wife to leave him for a woman, and I surely didn’t ask for my only daughter to get mixed up with a black man, but this is just how my life turned out”. All I could think while I was hearing this was..... karma is a bitch isn’t it? The sins of our parents will trickle down to us if we don’t stop them. Her life was riddled with hatred, which then defiled my mother’s life and I chose to stop that curse from ever coming near me! You cannot grow up in a house FULL of racism and think that the stench will not seep into your clothes and the dirt will not stain your hands.
-Liv
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