TO MY FRIENDS
Published by deviousdiva April 18th, 2006 in Personal.This is something I wrote at the lowest point of my blogging experience. That time has passed, though I am sure I will experience it again. I am sharing it now because so many of my blog friends are closing down and struggling and really suffering. So. Deep breath. Here it is… This is for you…
I have never felt so hated in my life. I'm just glad I found you.
Once, not so long ago, I was a skinny little black girl with unruly hair and fragile heart and very long legs. I remember running wild. Adventure and fantasy on my tongue and on my mind. Everything I saw was something absurd, something unheard, something to be told. My mum said ignore the stares, the slights, the insults. The ignorance. They don't know any better. Now. Now that I am all grown. My unruly hair is in my mind, my skinny legs grown thicker, my spirit saddened and less than before.
Now that I've grown, I see. THEY were not ignorant. THEY had facts. Facts that figure against me. Facts that prove I am not as wild. That I couldn't be anything I wished to be. Imaginative little girl. FACTS that prove I am a heathen. A savage. A barbarian.
If you told me, when I was six, that I could not be whatever it was I thought I could be, I would have giggled and talked about you behind your back. The thing I don't get…is why you were so threatened and defeated, by a six year old. A child who only wanted to realise her dreams. Who never dreamed of pain or oppression or stamping on someone's head to get to where she wanted to be. Naïve, innocent, stupid. Whatever. You think I have no brain. Oh.
But I can see where you are coming from. Exactly. What it is to be the white man. The pure man. I have seen all the reports and news and propaganda and bullshit that you have seen. The sad thing is, you cannot see where my black girl, fragile heart comes from. To that, you are blind. Ignorant. Unwilling to see.
You do not know what it is like for people to be afraid of you. At first glance. You do not know what it is like to have people close their eyes when you start to speak. You do not know what it is like when people draw their handbags closer to them as you walk by. You do not know the joy, the sad pathetic joy, you feel when someone talks to you like a human being. You do not know how it feels to live on a knife-edge. That something you say or do could mean the end. That could be a danger to you or your family or your friends. That if you don't smile and swallow, you will lose that job, that house, that salvation. You do not know how it feels to be part of something but always be an outsider. To feel your roots are always being dragged up, dug up and scrutinised.
Where are you from? Go back home. With your own kind. Where you belong. With your soul brothers and sisters. You really can't imagine. What it's like for a sweet, kind and beautiful (Yeah, I am all those things if you choose to see.) black girl with a fragile heart to take on all those things. And remain human and good and kind and sane.
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dd !! :p
i love this. and i hope that you will submit it to the upcoming radical woman of color carnival. women of color are so goddamn brave. how the hell do we find the stregth to continue opening up, to continue exposing ourselves, after all this pain??
thank you so much for writing this.
xo
You continue to inspire me. I always get something new from you. Thanks.
Like David said, YOU inspire me but I am not the least bit inspired by your post. Instead, I am angry. I want to go back in time and meet every miserable one of those people who upset you, who lined up their ‘facts’ against a beautiful 6 year old girl and made her question her own capabilities. I truly cannot understand and cannot deal with anyone who can inflict their warped ideology upon a child. I am so disappointed because I know your experiences growing up are needlessly shared by thousands of other children around the world today.
I am too disappointed to even to continue with my comment.
I’m just going to repeat what everyone else has already said- you’re an inspiration, DD. I wish I had something to say to you that was useful or original but I can only agree with everyone else. Hugs xxx
thanx for writing to remind us that beautiful and couregeous people come to all shapes,sizes and colors and that we can feel home wherever our hearts and our friends are.
Keep up, we are together in more ways than you think!
Beautiful DD. You ARE an inspiration. Don’t ever stop standing up for what you believe in.
For each one that hates, that says go back home, there are ten of us that love you the way you are.
Thank you for sharing your point of view so honestly and poignantly with us. It is mind-opening.
THIS IS HOME ,FRIEND
PEOPLE WHO GIVE OTHER
PEOPLE HARD TIMES
HAVENT A HOME
NEITHER HERE,
OR IN THEIR HEARTS
SO …PITY THEM.
HAVE A NICE WEEK.
=====Z======
Truly moving words, and very inspiring. I would just like to say thanks for your support which along with that of others prompted me to continue blogging although under another blanket so to speak…
Thank you all for YOUR inspiring words. I feel all warm and fuzzy now.
This is going to be a slow week blogwise. It’s the Easter holidays here and there are other things I would like to be doing. Enjoying my garden in the sun for one…
brownfemipower, I submitted to the carnival but I am not sure when it is out ? Thanks for suggesting it.
Some posts are really worth re-publishing and very potent reading material.
I’m sorry for all the skinny little girls with unruly hair that have to grow up with the hate. I’m glad you grew into such a giving person; determined and dedicated to wipe out the hate and make this world a better place.
Once again Diva you touch on the heart of things. The next time you feel that you’ve touched bottom remember there are people looking out for you, ready to listen and understand.
And the “white men” will always always find a way to say that you are the problem, and not them. While they hate and oppress and marginalise you, they will claim that it is they who are truly being oppressed. It’s one of the things they do best.
The best way to fight them is to care about each other as much as possible.
xx
My goodness. Your wonderful comments keep on coming and they keep on making me cry… in the best way possible. Thank you.
Why don’t you all just … stop ? That’s why know one reads your feminists blogs. I didn’t do anything to you so why are you pointing the fingers at me? I like women I haven’t done any thing wrong to them so why do you go on and on about us men as if we are all to blame. And then you pat yourselvs on the back and say thank you thank you for proving me right. It’s a fucking joke. Devious (yes you are are fucking devious) all you want is an ego boost and someone to tell you you’re a good little girl/ni**ger. Fucking give it up. You’re a joke. No-one gives a shit.
TIM
Tim,
Check your spelling, you loser. On the one hand I agree with you. All men are not bad. I know lots of men who inspire me, whom I respect and wonder at. They often muster a singlemindedness which if channelled leaves my fuzzy logic standing. They work their butts off to support their families, shoulder financial responsibilities that would make most women quake, attempt daring feats that our maternal instincts recoil from, stay calm when we buzz around them in panic.
There is little point moving from the specific to the general. Some men are mean, but so are some women. One mean man or even hundred of thousands of odious women-haters does not make all men, not even all “white men”, bad. In fact, seems to me that the character of the mother, her own self regard, and the effort she put in particulary in the first three-five years, has an awful lot to do with how the man turns out … Women are often responsible for the men they create. Too many hang onto their sons as vicarious lovers, for example, and leave other women to be knocked down by the nefarious fall out.
On the other hand, you gain nothing by your language but serve only to prove their point.
Happy Easter Devious Diva. Enjoy your garden. Hope you have some daffodils.
Daffodil
Good writing Diva - our testimonies need to be written. people have no humanity- what the helll are you doing here anyway and why are you so defensive? Why are you taking this personally if you didnt do anything?
Tomcat, you have commented here before and yet again, you have shown yourself up. I did not catch this comment before Daffodil and Owukori responded so I will leave it. `
As Biting Beaver once wrote: “If you are NOT guilty of the things I post about then I’m NOT fucking talking to you.”
Winter: Please please don’t generalize.
Just because there are idiots like… What was his name again? The guy who broke wind in here a moment ago? The one who can’t SPELL or present a coherent thought? … in the world doesn’t mean we should all be placed into the category of oppressors.
Some of us are allies.
You really can’t imagine. What it’s like for a sweet, kind and beautiful (Yeah, I am all those things if you choose to see.) black girl with a fragile heart to take on all those things.
man, it’s like you took those words right out of me. thank you for this posting!!!