Misfit

Picture this: first day of school. Ever. You’re four years old. You are excited to make new friends and do all the fun things your mommy has told you that you will do there. You hug your mommy goodbye and run into the classroom with all the other children. The teacher says hello and tells you to go sit on a purple pillow in the circle of children already sitting on the floor. (Purple is your favorite color.) You learn lots of new things that day. But you don’t remember any of them. The only thing you remember is that you discovered you were different from everyone else and apparently that was a bad thing. When you get home that day, you say to your mother, Mommy, am I black?

Have you ever walked into a room and felt like everyone was looking at you, then looked around and realized that, no, you are not paranoid, everyone islooking at you? And then have this happen every time you walk anywhere: school, market, bakery, butcher, ice cream parlor, restaurant, library, bus station, train station, airport, beach, down the street, someone’s home…for your entire life?

Have you ever felt out of place everywhere except for your very own home – because even your relatives say things like, ha ha, so you been out in the sun, haven’t you?– when the summer sun kissed you as played outside?

Have you ever gone to play at your new best friend’s house, you are, let’s say, ten years old, and then have her mother make you leave simply because of how you look? And when she is finally worn down by your best friend’s pleas, she tells her neighbors – who worry aboutthatchild coming over to play – oh, don’t worry, she’s different?

Having heard this, did you then spend decades trying desperately to continue being differentso that you might be accepted, fly under the radar, finally have people stop staring?

But they can’t because they would have to knowyou to know that you are different, but they can’t get beyond the skin for which there is no possibility of ecdysis.

When you walk into a upscale store, do they completely ignore you? Or, alternatively, do they eye you suspiciously until you leave, making you want to buy something even if you don’t like anything you see just so they know that you can?

Do people jump out of their skin (and occasionally scream) when they see you in a dimly lit, early morning gym parking lot, or in the stairwell of your luxury apartment building when the elevator is not working? Because they see yourskin, not your smile?

Did you ever have a friend ask you what you liked to be called and respond with your name and have her say, ha, you know what I mean, black or African-American? (Clearly, she had not read, Dale Carnegie: Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.)

Have you ever fallen in love with and married someone who society (and some family) thought you shouldn’t, didn’t approve of, indeed, had it happened 23 years prior to when it did, it would not even have been legal to marry?

Have you ever given birth to a child who is so different from you that your mother worried the nurses wouldn’t bring him back thinking he could not possibly be yours?

Have you ever prayed to God that your child would never be embarrassed to call you Mom? Not the normal, don’t kiss me here, don’t walk next to me, Mom, drop me off a block away, which every parent deals with in some form, at some point in a child’s life. No, I mean the possible reaction to “Oh, that’s your mom? Weird, I didn’t know you were black.”

If you answered yes to any of the above, you may sometimes, often or even always, feel like a misfit, but know that you are not alone.