When I was very young, before I knew that my skin was white, I walked right up to a girl exactly one month younger than me and I asked her to be my best friend. And we were. We were completely inseparable for years and I was completely and utterly clueless that we were different. I was completely oblivious to the fact that my mom was called names for taking a little white girl and a little black girl to the mall and - gasp - letting them hold hands, laugh and play as little girls do. I would have been mortified to learn that there was a bad name that someone could call my best friend just because her skin was darker than mine and neither of us really knew why her hair products didn't quite work on mine they way they were "supposed" to. I let her do my hair anyway, and only after her mom stopped us did I realize that I didn't need oil in my hair.
Kindergarten passed. Inseparable. First grade passed. Inseparable. Second grade passed. Inseparable.
My childhood was kind to me. Perhaps I was sheltered, living with a mother who didn't want me exposed to the harshness of the world. Maybe I lived in the most progressive house in my county. Either way, I didn't learn about the "N" word until I heard it at school one day. I remember going home and asking my mom what it meant. I let the word roll off my tongue as calmly and as naturally as if I were asking someone to pass me the salt at dinner. She was mortified. Why was it so bad? Wasn't it just a word? And then, a brief lesson in history ensued. Wait. You mean to tell me that some people don't like black people because they're black? That's silly. I went back to school and my whole world was different. I knew. I knew that we were different. Not because we were different, but because this word existed. Because the mentality behind this word existed, my best friend and I were no longer the same. We never would be.
Maybe she knew far earlier than I did that she was black. Don't get me wrong - I saw her skin but I did not know that it was supposed to define her. I didn't know that when people looked at her they were supposed to see Tiffany the Black Girl and not Tiffany My Best Friend. I didn't know what the world was teaching us.
Flash-forward to today. We are so, so different. She is beautiful with a smile and figure that I envy. She's almost done with school, but she's single and living the college scene cities away. I'm married and in the same town I grew up in. And we are jaded. The world has pitted us against each other and the world has a surely seen a show.
And it breaks my heart.
At 21, we have both grown into our own skin - hers black, mine white. We have embraced our history - hers sobering, mine embarrassing. But neither of us truly understand it. Neither of us can go back in time and figure out why these things happened to us. And we deal with it the only way we know how. With anger towards those who persecuted the innocent, with a wall of defense built high, with recreated memories of our ancestors being sold into slavery and our ancestors owning slaves- images neither of us have seen, but that we are taught to hold on to.
I will never know what it's like to purchase, torture and withhold the freedom of a human being just because the color of their skin is different. Tiffany will never experience being sold, forced to labor, or the feeling of living in America without being free. But society tells us to hold on to the idea that it could have been us; and because of that, we are infintely different.
I pray my children never forget the horrors that lie embedded within American history; without acknowleding the past, it's all too possible that it may repeat itself in the future. But I pray that my children have a softer heart than my generation. I pray that they realize that while they could have been born long ago, they were not.
There are so many beautiful people out there, waiting to connect to us. I pray that my children grow up without coming home to me one day, asking what a word means before realizing that everything they thought they knew was socially inaccurate.
I pray my future child and Tiffany's future child meet one day and fail to realize that they're different. In reailty, they are exactly the same.
And it breaks my heart.
At 21, we have both grown into our own skin - hers black, mine white. We have embraced our history - hers sobering, mine embarrassing. But neither of us truly understand it. Neither of us can go back in time and figure out why these things happened to us. And we deal with it the only way we know how. With anger towards those who persecuted the innocent, with a wall of defense built high, with recreated memories of our ancestors being sold into slavery and our ancestors owning slaves- images neither of us have seen, but that we are taught to hold on to.
I will never know what it's like to purchase, torture and withhold the freedom of a human being just because the color of their skin is different. Tiffany will never experience being sold, forced to labor, or the feeling of living in America without being free. But society tells us to hold on to the idea that it could have been us; and because of that, we are infintely different.
I pray my children never forget the horrors that lie embedded within American history; without acknowleding the past, it's all too possible that it may repeat itself in the future. But I pray that my children have a softer heart than my generation. I pray that they realize that while they could have been born long ago, they were not.
There are so many beautiful people out there, waiting to connect to us. I pray that my children grow up without coming home to me one day, asking what a word means before realizing that everything they thought they knew was socially inaccurate.
I pray my future child and Tiffany's future child meet one day and fail to realize that they're different. In reailty, they are exactly the same.
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