Journey to 35: Connectedness
I have always had a lot of friends...but I have not always felt connected. It’s taken me a while to even understand what was missing and that something was missing.
It was connectedness to my roots, to my heritage, to my background, to where I came from. To many I might appear to be black but I am a mixture of black American and Nigerian - two very different cultures. I grew up with two parents that weren’t super connected to their roots so I didn’t learn about black American or African history at home. I learned to assimilate. I learned the “acceptable” version (or lack thereof) black history presented to us in text books. I learned very little.
For all intensive purposes I grew up white. I grew up in a super homogenous environment where I was a token black girl. When I met black teenagers they were confused; thought I “wanted to be white” and made fun of me for how I talked, how I behaved and who I associated with. When I met white people they often called me “the whitest black girl”...as though it was a compliment (we’ll come back to this one in another post).
As an adult living in Chicago I gained a diverse set of friends...including black friends. I learned about so many different black experiences and black upbringings. Black people have so many different backgrounds by nature of slavery robbing us of our humanity and then the stories of slaves being hidden; being not properly shared as our white counterparts history is told. Like when I watch an old movie I wonder where the black people were in that time period. It’s like we just didn’t exist....but obviously that’s not possible. But obviously we were just omitted...we were just not included in the story of that period...we were just not deemed important enough to be apart of that story...we were insignificant. It’s so weird to me when I stop and think about it.
The first time I realized I really had no clue about black history was when I learned of the burning of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, OK. I grew up in that state yet I was in my late 20s when I learned of this genocide. I wondered how this is just omitted from our history books. I wondered how no one speaks of this terrorist attack on a community. I wondered how the story of these precious lives isn’t honored. I wondered about my profound sadness and also curiosity about this tragedy. I wondered how many other stories of black genocide were buried and deleted. I wondered what the purpose of all those Oklahoma History classes was...because it didn’t include black Oklahomans.
As I’ve grown older I longed to learn about different cultures not even realizing that I longed to learn about the two cultures that made me. That curiosity has led me to reading. That curiosity has lead me to film festivals. That curiosity has lead me to museums. That curiosity has lead me to ask questions. That curiosity has lead me away from passive acceptance. That curiosity has lead me to new authors. That curiosity has lead me to new friends. But most importantly that curiosity has lead me to me...a deeper more compassionate me that doesn’t take things for face value and looks at the big picture; looks at the deeply rooted systemic & cultural flaws of America.
As an adult one key thing put it into perspective for me. Learning that my mom went to a segregated elementary. Wait, what?!? I thought segregation was something our ancestors dealt with...not like our current family. Wait, what?!? So that means my white friends parents went to the white school while my mom went to the black school. Wait, what?!? So that’s why I could be the first black tridelta...b/c blacks weren’t previously allowed to be members. Yeaaaaaa so I didn’t really gets that or connect those dots till later in life b/c so often people say that racism is a thing of the past...a thing our ancestors dealt with as though it was hundreds of hundreds of years ago. But it wasn’t. It was less than 55 years ago when we gained the right to equal education and it was implemented in resistant states much later. Mind blowing when I paused and thought of it this way. My mother is mind blowingly strong to have experienced this but not passed down fears of racial injustice to my brother and me. My mother has a level of forgiveness that I haven’t reached. My mother has experienced things that I will never know about and will never have to experience. My mother is amazing b/c she did not instill hate and fear in her children despite whatever adversities she faced. I could never be grateful enough for having a mother that gave me this gift.
The picture below is a statue of a little girl from Louisiana. Earlier this year I had the honor of visiting The Whitney Plantation. It’s a different type of plantation tour b/c it’s dedicated to telling the story through the eyes of black, free-labor children. The little girl in the picture slept on the red rug at the foot of the bed in case her master needed anything through the night. The little girl in the picture used the metal object on the bed to heat her masters bed to the perfect temperature every night. The little girl in the picture worked for free and not by her parents choice. The little girl in the picture was somebody’s daughter. The little girl in the picture deserves to be remembered.
My journey to 35 has brought me a new sense of being connected to black culture and black people and wanting more. It’s brought me to a new appreciation for black history and thus a sense of being connected by learning and appreciating where I came from.
Blackness is beautiful; my blackness is beautiful.