A Stranger In A Strange Land: Black In White America

Am I a spectator of my own life?

Who will I be today?

From the time I walked in a child’s shoes, even while stacking up accomplishments and often hearing along the way, “you can do/be anything you want,” I always felt like a guest in someone’s house. Growing up as a member of a marginalized community in a country where a majority sets the tone for life — everyone’s life — is difficult to reconcile when your aspirations as a child are still being imagined.

Growing up in an adoptive mixed-race family, in a predominately white community brought an expected level of exclusion. Though I was able to avoid most of the pitfalls of an environment built to segregate my family, I learned to survive by becoming a dual citizen in my own life — seen and not seen, heard, and not heard. Blending into the background when need be while understanding those moments when I needed to be visible.

The challenge with this strategy is that when you are Black in a white space, everyone can see you and know who you are.

There is no hiding in a transparent sea of foam.

With constant reminders of being different, I couldn’t escape feeling ostracized by my own peers, neighbors I would see on the weekends, even the appointed protectors of children during this time — teachers — who beside parents were put in place to guide a young mind, offer pathways to growth and independence, educate and inspire a developing life. They too on occasion supported an environment that fostered prejudice and division.

Shirts or skins

Early on, I got a taste of what it was like to be treated as an outsider, someone who was considered a throwaway, forgotten in an effort to make life easier and more comfortable for those concerned with keeping the status quo intact. In my first year of middle school, I was put in a gym class that was for the developmentally challenged, and for those students, the administration felt had conflicting social issues and could not fit in with the rest of the student body. Apparently, I fit the latter category, even though the aforementioned did not apply to me. The only strike against me… I was Black in a white school.

On the first day of this class, I recall not seeing one familiar face and being confused as to why none of my “friends” were in attendance. At first, I wasn’t sure how to process this reality but then quickly realized I was in an environment where I did not belong. It didn’t take long for the anger to show itself and make a stink. But this is a 12-year-old brain trying to make sense of a situation it had no concept of.

I was too young to understand why of all my 200+ fellow classmates — my white classmates — I was banished so-to-speak to the dungeons of learning. Was I being punished? I was a castaway, put in a group of the forgotten; left to fend for myself as other students enjoyed activities and games, and socializing. The class I was relegated to just sat around doing time. In a detention-like atmosphere, the teacher had little interest in engaging and educating the kids and was more focused on keeping the “unruly” in check.

As expected, and to add insult to injury, this ostracism eventually bore additional fruit, from typical middle school bullying to a path built for future categorizing and misplacement. For a time, I was considered developmentally challenged which, if you were a middle-schooler, was the kiss of death. At the time I felt unwanted, thrown away, discarded, abandoned. You can see how the effects from experiences such as this could give root to long-term mental strain for a young child — a Black child.

Consequently, the Black community, in particular, is at significantly increased risk of developing a mental health issue due to historical, economic, social, political influences that systemically expose the Black community to factors known to be damaging to psychological and physical health. — Thomas A. Vance, PhD

During this time I made it a point to inform my parents of what the school bestowed on me through gross negligence.

After a series of meetings between my parents and the school administration, a tongue lashing of the group by my father, and a few threats of “lawyering up,” the school reluctantly caved in and reassigned me to a “non-throwaway” gym class. In the end, no apology was offered for the mishandling of the situation or concern for how this affected a Black child with no developmental issues. I remember in the wake of this debacle feeling shunned by a few teachers and a handful of students. The points, the stares, the feeling of being considered either a “trouble maker,” or someone who just didn’t matter or belong, followed me for the beginning of my middle school career.

Silenced but not forgotten

Being stigmatized by those in a white space without knowing who I was as a person influenced how I engaged with others moving forward. Defense mechanisms began to germinate and quick to strike was how I coped with discomfort. Being exiled to a forgotten place because of a perceived stereotype set the tone for how kids in the Black community were/are treated.

At a time when forming social groups were in their infancy, and understanding your place and acceptance in said group’s was more important than exerting one’s own independence, the pressure to fit in, to be accepted, and to live a young life was all that kids of this age thought about.

Was I put in this gym class because the administration had no idea what to do with the only Black kid in the school?

There was no other reason evidently.

Was I considered “slow” because of my race?

Most probably.

Perhaps the decision to place me in a group of outcasts was nothing more than their version of “out of sight, out of mind.” This experience added yet another page to my story still being written.

I wondered. Will I always be someone who is cast aside? When I get older, will my life not matter? I did not think too deeply about my purpose nor analyze my life’s path at 12 but I did appreciate the situation I was in and knew of the weight of injustice that was upon me at that age. How a system could, at its will, cast you aside for reasons beyond your control.

The unfairness was glaring even at 12 yet somehow the frequency of future injustices became a part of life and over time I got used to them defining who I was.

As a child protected by the parental bubble, awareness of such maltreatment isn’t typically at the forefront of a young mind. The analytical understanding of your place in a world is often not fully formed; especially when your world consists of Saturday morning cartoons, multi-colored cereal, and what games will be played once you get to the park.

The feeling of inclusion even from those ardent supporters of “the cause” never truly stayed within me. That protective membrane you build around you when you’re younger can harden over the years as you encounter frequent occasions of discrimination, people and systems positioned to deter you from progressing, and make you feel excluded, unwanted — worthless.

Stuck in the middle again

If it weren’t the extra pounds I smuggled underneath my clothes every day, it was the color of my skin that made me the target of cherry-picked ridiculing. These middle years were a breeding ground for tense interaction with underdeveloped minds bent on casting aside any and all that was different. This pit stop in a child’s journey through adolescence had more of an effect on my outlook for the future, and who I interacted with than I care to acknowledge, and am not proud of.

It’s bad enough growing up never feeling fully accepted by the world around you — to take up space with no purpose and be looked at as only a negative counterpart to human existence -but with measured action taken to remove you from a place of comfort, it is not difficult to see things through a dehumanizing lens.

Fortunately, this middle school experience did not linger in my mind too long but I am reminded of how a traumatic experience such as this can impact young Black children — to be viewed as anything other than who you are especially at an impressionable age. The danger in questioning your self-worth and the permanent damage it can cause is overwhelmingly destructive.

There are many stories in the American Black library that portray us as objects to be tossed aside and not the human beings we see in the mirror. What is most disturbing is the psychological sabotage experiences of this ilk do on a young person’s view of self.

I welcome conspiracy theories like I do a punch in the neck but you have to wonder if, with all the racial strife and injustice Black people face in this country and have for centuries, the idea of a long game is not that far-fetched.

To this, we are all strangers in our own homes.

Thank you for reading!

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