Coming from Portsmouth herself, my mom was playing no games with me when it came to my education and how I carried myself. She bugged me till I was basically driven crazy if I mispronounced or did not speak properly. Did I mention that she had me in summer school when I was an honor roll student? Yeah, you try having a former naval officer as a mother who is also a lawyer. Not fun. Needless to say, I am not a fairly articulate woman as well as very opinionated thanks to my father's background of being a former local NAACP president and locally well known civil rights leader. In addition to being raised and well versed in the Eurocentric ideals of education my mother and father also decided I needed to be educated on what's "real" in our communities.
My mom used to read my slave stories at night from a book of old diary entries from slaves. And since I wanted to act my dad said: "Well then act out Martin Luther King's: "I have a Dream Speech." So at 5, I knew the entire I have A Dream Speech from beginning to end. Not to mention the little things I would pick up from my grandmother talking about the days of segregation. Did I forget to mention my parents are old? Sorry, yeah my parent's have been through some shit. My mom was in the first class to break 100 black students and the second class with black women at the University of Virginia in the '70s. I can't give a reference for my father 'cept that he knew the attorney's that worked on the class action lawsuit Brown vs. the Board of Education. So, yeah, I got enough black pride to last me and my children. (Yeah, they ain't gonna like me)
However, even with all this, I wasn't black enough.
I was in a private school a good portion of my life but there were two years of my grade school career that I went to my local public High School. If you don't know anything about Portsmouth... look it up. The public school's are about the same. I didn't last a month before the bullying started. I was picked on for not "sounding" black enough or "acting" black enough by my own people. See this cause a bit of dysphoria in my self-conscious because I had been in a private white school and didn't fit in for being too black and outspoken, go to public school get bullied for being not black enough.
I basically felt like I did not belong anywhere and secluded myself for a while. It wasn't until I got a bit older and started to navigate the two strong polar opposite aspects of what makes me. I had to learn how to chill out and not always walk too straight with my head held so high and just relax. Yeah, this took a while for my mom to get used to but she soon realized I was turning my switches on and off. Learning to navigate the world I was in and gain a sense of belonging.
And even when that didn't work, I learned not to care. I had to learn there is nothing wrong with being articulate and having amazing posture because ultimately it will enable me to give back to my community. To be able to articulate the needs of my brothas and sistas. To flip the societal wrongs done to us one their asses and fix what is wrong in our community.
I learned that being black isn't always about how I talk, walk, or act but in how I try to give back to those in my community. I honor those who died for our rights. It's in how I uphold the legacy of our community.
