growing up black in america

I grew up in a home where both parents had a heritage rooted in black America. My father was born in Mississippi to parents who operated a farm his entire life. He had 2 sisters and a brother. Once he grew up, he moved to Illinois, took a job, got married and started a family.

My mother was born in Louisiana to a father who was of direct African descent and a mother who was of direct native Indian descent. They moved to California and started a household with only one daughter and many sons. Her brothers ended up joining the military and made a career serving and protecting our country.

As a child, we never had much money, but my family still managed to buy a house, my father always had a nice car and worked every day to support his family. I learned from my father the importance of a great work ethic, the importance of taking care of your family, and how to navigate being black in America. We saw how his white bosses would talk down to him in front of others and how when the police stopped us for whatever reason we ended up in the police stations having to explain why we were in our car for whatever reason. I used to think that everyone was treated this badly, but as I got older I realized that it really was limited to people who weren’t “white”. I was an outspoken child and many times my father would silence me and he would tell me “you can’t just speak your mind when dealing with white people. Many believe that a black man has no voice and should not be listened to.”

My mother was a loving and protective woman. She did not work outside the home, but she took care of herself and her children. There was a time when we were in elementary school, my class was going to the bathroom and my sisters’ class was already in the hallway getting ready to go back to class. I saw my sister and her friends just talking and being girls when the principal, Mrs. Brown, a white female, came down the hall, told the girls to stop talking in the hall, and proceeded to grab my sisters by your ear and take her out of line to tell her to shut up. As the younger brother, I wanted to say something because I saw my sister crying from being treated so roughly. When we got back home I told her to tell my mother but she didn’t want to. So I did. My mother was in the principal’s office the next day and after speaking with the teacher about the incident (which many children and staff witnessed), she went to the principal’s office and let her know that under no circumstances was she to put his hands on my sister again. The principal was surprised to see my mother speak to her as she did, but my mother wasn’t afraid to speak up when it came to protecting her children.

Growing up black in America means you have many memories of being treated unequally compared to other white children. It means that a society was always trying to show you your “place in the world”. Racial slurs, comments that insult your intelligence, and people trying to make you feel inferior to them were common.

I’m glad some things have changed and improved for black people here. It saddens me that we still have so far to go. God never made an inferior race; people just get stuck on wanting to feel superior to someone.

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