I wonder if I’ll ever feel normal again?
by Me on May.13, 2005, under Nature's Psyche Lab (aka Family)
I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
For a long time, one of my deepest fears has been the fear that one of my children was going to reject me because of my race.
Now my fear has been realized.
Being the victim of racism is terribly hurtful. It’s rejection, a kind of rejection that is worse than the normal unrequited love stuff. I’m not sure if I have it in me to explain it right now but suffice it say it hurts. A lot.
It hurts a lot more when it comes from your own child.
What am I talking about? It’s simple. My daughter hates her hair. She wishes she had the kind of hair that looked like the other girls at school. She wishes she could do something to it to make it behave like that. There is nothing she can do to her hair to tranform it into the kind of hair she wants.
So what’s wrong with her hair?
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with her hair: her mother is a black woman. If her mother wasn’t black, she wouldn’t be having the problems with her hair that she’s having.
Of course, she doesn’t put it that way. She has probably never even thought of it that way. But that’s what it is.
It hurts. More than I could ever describe.
May 13th, 2005 on 5:55 pm
Mom, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t really mean it the way I said it. I was just honestly nervous. And I guess I took it out on you in a way. I’m really sorry.
Here; I’ll email you. That way I can say everything I need to say.
May 13th, 2005 on 5:58 pm
I Hate Me
…
May 15th, 2005 on 6:37 pm
I never grew up in any form of seeing racism. But I feel horrible whenever I hear about it cause it just ain’t fair. Just cause a person don’t look the same don’t mean they’re different. Actually to tell the truth, the only people that I’ve ever seen that act like jerks are white. I’ve never seen a mean black, Iraqi, mexican, etc. in my whole life. So, just to let you know, I’m sorry for the way you feel and hope that things like “way-back-when” never happen again.