The Synergistic Pen

if you haven't been watching the documentary on CNN called Black in America... shame on you... it comes on again Saturday... watch it...

if you have watched it... I'm sure you've spent the week having some very interesting conversations with people....

in this year of milestones, the one concerning MLK's assaination is particularly poignant....

I remember where I was and what I was doing and how my parents reacted and how his death changed everything...EVERYTHING...for me...

although I'd intentionally been exposed to racism by my parents (it was important to them that I knew who I really was in the eyes of the majority)... as a 6 year old child, I sensed that I would now experience life on a different level... and I did...

growing up in what I now refer to as the black version of the wonder years, it never occured to me that black folk couldn't be doctors or lawyers, or policemen or firemen or teachers or supervisors at the steel mill... all those sorts lived within a 4 block radius of my home...

it never occured to me that I couldn't be anything I wanted to be...becasue there were people around me where whatever they wanted to be...

then one day...I rode my bike into a neighbor about a mile away...

as I rode through with my friend... laughing and having fun... someone called out from one of the porches we passed...

"hey girl...you darkie... what your ugly ass doing around here?"

my friend circled back and I followed...

the people on the porch were laughing at us.. we actually thought we'd be confronting whites; there were still a few living in our hood...

but, the person that felt obliged to insult me... was black... BLUE BLACK to be exact... and I was confused...

my friend, a fiesty child who didn't take crap off anyone... told them off and we rode away... I never rode my bike through that neighborhood again...I've gone through it many times in my car....

I went home and at dinner, asked... why do some blacks feel its ok to call other blacks ugly or darkie?

the silence at the table could be cut with a knife. My father was gripping his silverware so tightly his hands were shaking...

"I have no answer for that darlin'."

I've learned the reason for it as time has passed. Self hatred is "our thing"... and if we can pull someone down into the pit that we perceive is rising to the top...we will do it...

maybe it was the nice bikes, or our nice short sets, or our perfectly combed hair (our mothers NEVER let us out of the house without looking perfect...this didn't mean we returned that way however... lol)

and its our self hatred...borne of being told we are nothing... that is still the "glue" that binds our community...

and ths documentary... this wonderful "story"... reminded me that I have finally shed my self hatred...

and it gives me reason to be glad that a lot of my brothers and sisters out there have shed theirs also...

and yet... there are many in our community that still hate themselves...and enjoy hating on "us" ....

so much work done...

so much work yet to do...

yeah Martin... the dream is still alive...

I'll keep the light on for those wandering out of the darkness...