I Married a Black Man...In the South

I married a black man...in the south. 

There. I said it. 

Which is fairly odd considering there was a time I was terrified of black people. 

There. I said THAT, too.

Allow me to explain.

Elberton, GA, circa 1990s. "Granite Capital of the World." Like, literally the city was known for its mass production of tombstones. The demographic was pretty evenly split between whites and blacks, but it was extremely segregated...or at least in my mind, it was. Mostly because I grew up in an ultra-conservative, super Pentecostal Holiness, over-protective single parent home. Anything outside the home or church was probably of the devil...including Scooby Doo and the Smurfs. Definitely the school mascot, the Blue Devils! And did I mention all the tombstones!?

I digress.

Soon after my parents split, my brother and I were forced to ride the school bus to school. (#whitepriviledge) We lived near a predominantly black neighborhood so there were very few whites on our bus. Our bus driver was a large, black man who had mastered the art of ignoring everything around him. Nose to the grind. Whistle while you work. Get the kids to school. Mission accomplished.

So here I am, blonde hair, blue eyes, thick glasses among a sea of loud, rambunctious, fighting, lusting, brown-skinned school kids. Keep in mind that the only loud noises I was accustomed to were the tambourines and Holy Ghost shouts heard at church or prayer meetings. So in my elementary mind (and I'm not just referring to age) I associated all the madness that occurred on the bus with the "different" people around me. 

Then there was the blue jean jacket. Not just your regular jean jacket, but the kind with the gray hoodie sewn in! The kind my grandfather saw me eyeing and knew my mother couldn't afford. The kind ALL the other kids had. It was glorious! It brought something out of me I never knew was there...confidence, sass! It was the kind of blue-jean-with-gray-hoodie-jacket that you wore even if the temps were nearing the high 70s. It was THAT kind of jacket. It was also the kind of jacket that a brown-skinned girl would steal from me, decorate with bright colored markers...you know, in a Fresh Prince of Belair way...then proudly wear to school the next day. 

Strike one for brown people.

Next, there was the brown boy who insisted on getting in line behind me every time we entered or exited the bus. The thought of it even now makes my heart beat a little faster, but not nearly as rapidly as my sixth-grade heart. My eyes would begin to fill with tears as he would touch my bottom, and fear and anxiety would completely overwhelm me. 

Strike two for brown people. 

I vividly remember laying my head on my mother's lap, embarrassed, sobbing, as I told her what was happening. She was as helpless as I was because this was well before bullying or the #metoo movement had a name. I did get some solid advice from my brother which consisted of where to place my knee...forcefully. But did I mention the fear and anxiety that consumed me? In my mind, I imagined myself kneeing him in the crotch, looking down over him as he moaned in pain, smirking with pride as I was escorted to the principal's office. I replayed that scene in my mind so many times that I actually believed it happened! Have you ever lied to yourself so much you believed it?

Fast forward to my forty-one-year-old self, I realize that the chaos on the bus had nothing to do with the melanin of the passengers' skin and everything to do with the hearing deficit of the driver. I also realize that the brown girl and brown boy who impacted me so deeply were siblings, and I will never know what went on behind the closed doors of their home that made them think their actions were acceptable. That breaks my heart.

What I do know is that I am not the only person who has felt prejudice in their lifetime. I feel it much differently now as I walk into restaurants with my black, bald, muscular husband and we are seated in a different area than everyone else. Or when my beautiful, curly-haired, cappuccino-skinned daughter gets the cold shoulder from the white boy she likes the day after his parents are introduced to hers. I feel it as I participate in a local racial reconciliation group that exposes me to books, articles, podcasts, and stories about a history I was never taught in the Granite Capital of the World. I especially feel it when we are stopped by the police and my strong, protective husband has a look of fear and panic on his face. And I know that when the day comes that we will have to explain to our autistic brown boy how to respond when HE is pulled over, my anxiety will rule and reign once again.

So there you have it. The once-prejudice blondie marries the black baldie. Sounds like another good Hallmark movie, huh? But wait until the next blog when the Lifetime movie unfolds.

(Writer's note: Possible opening for next blog - "I had a baby by a sex-offender. There. I said it.")