During The Great Purge of my home and belongings that I undertook in January, I came across a file folder filled with compositions, letters and notes I had written and/or received in high school. One of the notes haunted me when I first received it and haunted me again when I re-read it a week ago, more than 50 years later.
It was a hand-written note from R — the only black student in my high school. In it, he expresses his frustration that I’ve been “telling people how you hate me and don’t want me hanging around you. It isn’t my fault I’m black. I didn’t ask for it. It just happened . . . Don’t get mad or shook up. I [sic] an average Black boy in a segregated school . . . I guess some of the kids were right, black [sic] and whites don’t mix.”
On one level, R’s note illustrates the still rampant racism of the late Sixties, particularly in small towns in Western Pennsylvania, like my hometown of Slippery Rock. On a deeper level, however, this note illustrates the consequences of growing up in a dysfunctional home where fear dictated behavior.
At the time, my mother had forbidden me to have contact with my girlfriend, Ellie [not her real name], with whom I had an intense platonic relationship, a relationship that while emotionally consuming, enlarged my world beyond my mother’s world, a world that did not exist outside the boundaries of her house.
One day, I surreptitiously met Ellie in the high school lobby and R spotted us. I knew immediately that R would tell one of my younger sisters who would then inform my mother . . . and when I got home from school, my mother confronted me.
“Karen tells me that you saw Ellie today,” said my mother.
“I did not,” I insisted.
“She said that R saw the two of you together in the high school lobby.”
Heart pounding with no room to escape my shame, I resorted to a response that would confirm my credibility; a response I had observed and learned from my parents.
“What does R know? He’s black.”
“We’ll see about that,” said my other. She then picked up the phone book, looked up the number for R’s family and told me to go downstairs and listen on the extension. She dialed the number and R answered.
“This is Mrs. Anderson, Sharon’s mother.”
“Uh-huh,” replied Randy, clearly intimidated.
“My daughter, Karen, told me that you saw Sharon with Ellie in school today. Is that true?”
Randy said nothing.
“You know you didn’t,” I said into the phone.
“I don’t know . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t remember . . .” stammered R.
My mother ended the call and from downstairs, I yelled, “I told you. He doesn’t know anything. He’s black.”
About a month later, I discovered R’s note in my high school locker.
My mother constantly told me that I never listened to her, but I never failed to imitate her, and still sometimes do.
The American writer, and civil rights activist, James Baldwin, said, “Love does not begin and end the way we think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war, love is growing up.”
I still feel shame more than 50 years later. Growing up takes a lifetime.
This is another painful story of the dysfunction rampant in my childhood home. It is as potent to take in now as it was to experience back then. Emotional scars like these never really go away. They may lose their capacity to torment and stifle, but they remain dormant and will re-emerge at any time.
The pain and dysfunction of this story notwithstanding, America has not made much progress against racism since the Sixties. In fact, it seems to have gotten worse. Race-based affirmative action has died. Will the fight for racial justice die, too? Isn’t working toward racial justice critical, if not the only way to preserve our democracy?
Sharon, Something inside feels shame AND I would invite another Something to feel compassion for the teen you who was caught and trying so hard to get out of the trap. That something used “black” because it was convenient and she could have used anything such as “he makes things up” or “he is stupid” or “he is mad at me.” I get it that “black” should not have been so convenient. Your teen self was a product of her family and culture. We all participated in that shame as a country. We all participated in that shame as whites.
Very astute and healing comment, Charlotte. I’ve been in a rather foul mood ever since writing and posting this story and I think it’s due to shame. I also appreciate your perspective that “we all participated in that shame [racism] as a country . . . as whites.” xoxo
This perspective texted to me from another beloved:
“This is such a painful and heartbreaking story, Sharon. You weren’t safe because of your family’s craziness; R wasn’t safe because of our parents’ generation’s fear of blackness, which we, as children, did, indeed, imitate. I so appreciate your vulnerability in telling the truth!”
A poignant memory and will doubtless recall for all of us similar moments from our stories that are painful to remember. Thanks for your courage. I very much like Charlotte’s response, and I’ll simply add another quotation from Frank Cunningham’s “Vesper Time”:
“As a spiritual practice, aging is about living into our memories, about seeking their meaning, about accepting and being kind to them. We do this through story, determining how our story shapes us, and by understanding that we are more than the sum of our experiences.”
He adds this in another place: As a spiritual practice, aging “is also about recognizing an arc of nourishment” in our story, and I sense he means here a Presence that has somehow accompanied us, cared for us, and fed us to help us reach our current state and to help us process kindly and lovingly all the stories of our lives.
Carol — “Vesper Time” — based on just a few quotes you have shared here and with me outside of here — is a very wise book. Thank you for taking a moment to share these quotes which are healing i.e., ” . . . we are more than the sum of our experiences.”
“An arc of nourishment” is a lovely description for what you see as a Presence. That Presence has always been for me the patience and forgiveness of many beloveds. But you are referring to another Presence that perhaps works through my beloveds; a Presence I see during morning sunrises. A Presence that is perhaps standing with me now as I write.
Oh my love. That is heartbreaking, all the way around. There is such beauty in your vivid haunting clarifying story. Thank you for sharing. ❤️
Neola: love you so much.🥰😘💕
Sharon, this is a stunningly honest revelation and I echo Carol’s thanks for your courage in sharing it. The fact that you have shame is an illustration that you have out grown these limiting beliefs and also that you no longer need them to protect yourself from your mother.
Though I wish it were, in our nation, racism is not something we can refer to in the past tense. I was struck that your story appeared at the same time as the news of the convictions of the “goon squad,” the police officers who brutalized two innocent back men. Do those officers feel shame? I feel it for them … and horror.
Take good care of your brave and tender heart.