Body memory. At 10 months, our older girl could speak fluently in English and Spanish. At 16 months, she spoke as well as any adult, so at the park around the corner from home, she addressed a white father who was pushing his blonde, blue-eyed toddler on a swing, "How old is your daughter?" No answer. "How old is your daughter?" she asked again, just a little louder. No answer. The third time, I told her, "That man is not going to answer you, let's go home." It felt like slinking away. This was something I had, in my woeful naiveté, never expected from our biracial marriage. (I'm so white I glow in the dark; nothing in my life experience could approach this. Throughout her childhood and teens, fighting for her only ever backfired to caused her even more hurt.) It marked the beginning of a lifetime of invisible slings and arrows for this gifted child, now an adult subject to acute migraines and soul-crushing high anxiety, the best and brightest in her work-from-home job, who still hides herself away. Body memory.
No keyboard showed to answer your musing as to whether you should post a Thursday article today--(?) Why change, indeed, is my thinking. (It's a selfish answer; I woke up looking for today's presentation even before I got out of bed!)
I have indulged to read Ms. Romero's article, at least, before starting in on prepping our turkey day dinner. Today I am above all THANKFUL to have my little family living together and safe at home, even though we are immediately uncomfortable once we enter our wider, extremely white community, proudly the first home of skinheads. (There are actually many people of color living here, as quietly as they can. But there are fewer than 1.2% Black people in this third largest city in California.) One of my girls yearns to leave for anywhere in Europe, although a well-traveled African man once told us, "Racism is everywhere," as Ms. Romero confirms. Our younger daughter presents a tougher-than-you attitude that's served her well so far, although she's the most thoughtful, caring person I know. It's a shame they have to don that kind of pretense just to buy groceries, or gas. Neither, of course, can find local employment matching their several degrees/skill sets.
When we married in 1990, I had thought the country was on a better track; a few years later, skinheads driving by were screaming the n-word at him as he raked leaves in our front yard. That same year, two Black men were murdered on the city's main street. Years later, I was stopped for having the wrong tag on the BMW as we were heading home from a restaurant dinner one late afternoon, my husband in the passenger seat, the girls in the back--but the police only wanted my husband to, "GET OUT OF THE CAR!" They escalated to the threat of violence so fast, my head spun! I got out, instead, and immediately they calmed down. Their thought process was so loud, I swear I could hear it: ok, white lady, dressed well, ok ok. They made me, disabled woman with a cane, limp to the rear and bend down to examine the offending tag; apparently that satisfied as sufficient mortification for the event. (The ticket was later dismissed without any action on our part because the tag was indeed ours: I'd only mistakenly put it on the wrong vehicle, which is not an offense. They could have known that by asking the dispatcher to check, especially as I had, in fact, told them that's probably what I did.) At that point, however, we were being ticketed come hell or high water, as it was near the end of the month and they have, after all, their quota to fill.
When one daughter volunteered for GreenPeace, seeking donations in a public thoroughfare, a man came on to her with, "You're one of them hot black chicks, aren't you? (She's biracial, café au lait, so maybe he wasn't sure--?) He only quit when another volunteer asserted that she was HIS, at which point the guy apologized--not to her but to HIM, "Oh, bro, so sorry, I didn't know. Another time in public, a man pulled off her sunglasses without saying a word. She always orders groceries for delivery now, after so many white women have wordlessly pawed though her hair.
Many years ago, it was only dumb young white guys with shaved heads; now it's everybody, even people of color who are not identifiably Black themselves. And they don't shout anymore; they rarely speak. But their eyes follow, everywhere, a thing felt even when not looking back.
Body memory. At 10 months, our older girl could speak fluently in English and Spanish. At 16 months, she spoke as well as any adult, so at the park around the corner from home, she addressed a white father who was pushing his blonde, blue-eyed toddler on a swing, "How old is your daughter?" No answer. "How old is your daughter?" she asked again, just a little louder. No answer. The third time, I told her, "That man is not going to answer you, let's go home." It felt like slinking away. This was something I had, in my woeful naiveté, never expected from our biracial marriage. (I'm so white I glow in the dark; nothing in my life experience could approach this. Throughout her childhood and teens, fighting for her only ever backfired to caused her even more hurt.) It marked the beginning of a lifetime of invisible slings and arrows for this gifted child, now an adult subject to acute migraines and soul-crushing high anxiety, the best and brightest in her work-from-home job, who still hides herself away. Body memory.
No keyboard showed to answer your musing as to whether you should post a Thursday article today--(?) Why change, indeed, is my thinking. (It's a selfish answer; I woke up looking for today's presentation even before I got out of bed!)
I have indulged to read Ms. Romero's article, at least, before starting in on prepping our turkey day dinner. Today I am above all THANKFUL to have my little family living together and safe at home, even though we are immediately uncomfortable once we enter our wider, extremely white community, proudly the first home of skinheads. (There are actually many people of color living here, as quietly as they can. But there are fewer than 1.2% Black people in this third largest city in California.) One of my girls yearns to leave for anywhere in Europe, although a well-traveled African man once told us, "Racism is everywhere," as Ms. Romero confirms. Our younger daughter presents a tougher-than-you attitude that's served her well so far, although she's the most thoughtful, caring person I know. It's a shame they have to don that kind of pretense just to buy groceries, or gas. Neither, of course, can find local employment matching their several degrees/skill sets.
When we married in 1990, I had thought the country was on a better track; a few years later, skinheads driving by were screaming the n-word at him as he raked leaves in our front yard. That same year, two Black men were murdered on the city's main street. Years later, I was stopped for having the wrong tag on the BMW as we were heading home from a restaurant dinner one late afternoon, my husband in the passenger seat, the girls in the back--but the police only wanted my husband to, "GET OUT OF THE CAR!" They escalated to the threat of violence so fast, my head spun! I got out, instead, and immediately they calmed down. Their thought process was so loud, I swear I could hear it: ok, white lady, dressed well, ok ok. They made me, disabled woman with a cane, limp to the rear and bend down to examine the offending tag; apparently that satisfied as sufficient mortification for the event. (The ticket was later dismissed without any action on our part because the tag was indeed ours: I'd only mistakenly put it on the wrong vehicle, which is not an offense. They could have known that by asking the dispatcher to check, especially as I had, in fact, told them that's probably what I did.) At that point, however, we were being ticketed come hell or high water, as it was near the end of the month and they have, after all, their quota to fill.
When one daughter volunteered for GreenPeace, seeking donations in a public thoroughfare, a man came on to her with, "You're one of them hot black chicks, aren't you? (She's biracial, café au lait, so maybe he wasn't sure--?) He only quit when another volunteer asserted that she was HIS, at which point the guy apologized--not to her but to HIM, "Oh, bro, so sorry, I didn't know. Another time in public, a man pulled off her sunglasses without saying a word. She always orders groceries for delivery now, after so many white women have wordlessly pawed though her hair.
Many years ago, it was only dumb young white guys with shaved heads; now it's everybody, even people of color who are not identifiably Black themselves. And they don't shout anymore; they rarely speak. But their eyes follow, everywhere, a thing felt even when not looking back.