You have a lot of questions. I can’t answer everything right now. But just for this moment:
I don’t think I’m that great. I just think I understand narcissistic abuse and the double consciousness of being a family ‘scapegoat.’ I relate to black people better than I do white people. Because of the abuse I lived through as a child of a narcissistic mother. I’ll explain more about that in another post in the near future.
I also have a mixed background. Family lineage suggests I’m not that ‘white’ and in the summer, I’m olive, like Latino, but family history says creole, so we’ll go with that…
I’m also extremely short and people make all kinds of assumptions about me because of that — it is the first thing anyone notices about me — again, another place where there’s common ground for me. I know it’s not the same, but it is similar enough that I can make deeper connections.
The black girls I went to high school with protected me and loved me when no one else gave a shit. They hung out with me at lunch and accepted me in a way I had never experienced in my life. In so many ways they showed me over and over again who I am, what I am capable of and that I was worthy of love and belonging.
And finally, I listened. I really listened. I fucked up a lot. Long time ago I was the dummy talking about “I don’t see color.” Oh how fucking embarrassing! But, I decided to dig in my heels and learn. Because of so many things. But mostly because if it weren’t for those black girls I went to school with, I would be dead.
They saved my life. I owe them my life. My soul, my brain, my heart, how I love others — it all came from them — it was all shaped by these girls who just decided to love me.
This happened AGAIN while I was at the university. I had very few friends. Then one day I met a wonderful person who happened to be a black female.
I don’t know why, but she decided to love me. She introduced me to all her friends and they decided to love me too. I stayed with her family for a week and learned that they were just like mine. Her family decided to love me too.
I don’t know why these people loved me and were my friends when I needed people the most, like angels they were just there for me. I was there for them too (I’m a ride or die kinda friend) but I don’t think I could ever pay them back.
And the only way I know how to honor them as they deserve and love them back rightly, is to listen and learn and fight because I know the truth. The truth is, black people are people. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ human in any culture.
Anyway, more later. It isn’t me though. It’s my teachers and the support I was given.
It has zero to do with me.
