This project started with a description of our earliest memory of knowing about the differences of our selves from the other. The movie Roots, a television mini-series, told the story of how one family lived with and through slavery. I’m sure the show was meant to empower African Americans, but this was not the case for me. You see I attended an all white catholic school and found myself the target of racial slurs and stereotypes. The white kids over night became superior to me, just because I was black. "What big lips you have, what a big but you have, what’s wrong with your hair" I was made to defend my blackness and subsequently learn to hate it.

My family tried hard to help me adjust to this difficult time. It was hard for them though, you see things were so much better for me; I was going to a good white school getting a good white education. I learned to keep my problems to myself. What a bad girl I was not to appreciate the scarifies my family had made for me. Another layer of self-hatred was added.

As a child I believed that being white meant being happy. The white kids never seemed to have any problems. Their parents talked to them not at them. They were aloud to do things I could never ask to do. They were smart; in class they always seemed to know what the teacher was saying and had answers to her questions. While I sat and prayed that she would not call on me so I would not make a foul of myself… again. After the weeklong viewing of Roots, I felt even more like an outsider. How could I gain entrance to that elite club, where everyone was happy, smart, and had a future? I could not, I was black. Since my skin was light, I often told "others" of my mixed lineage, hoping it would be enough for acceptances to the club.

Then there were my family relationships. You see parenting is an art, an art black people do not have the luxury of exploring. Putting food on the table, creating better opportunities for your children through monetary gains, "fitting in" those are the priority of black parents. And progress is measured through how much better your child’s life is that yours was. Or should I say how much more your child has than you had. Things, keeping up with the Jones, this is the National Anthem I grew up with. In this atmosphere there is no room to complain, to question, to even suggest that your life is not good. It would be a slap to the face of my parents. My hard working, sacrificing, parents, to suggest that your life was not filled with hope and promise. "We pay a lot of money for you to go to that school, it’s your responsibility to learn what they got to teach you, who cares about them liking you, like yourself" these were the words of comfort I received for my dismay with my classmates and teachers. I know my grandmother loved me, and was just tiring to make me feel better, but it just made me feel alone. A loneliness that still lingers within me today. Still unable to join the club.

As a parent of a 17-year-old daughter, I find myself giving advice about how to deal "with the other". I hope I’ve done this with compassion. It hard to be black, no matter how far we as a people have come, we are going nowhere.

Are black people determined to be the permanent under class? I say yes, if being black is what you want to be. Blackness has been relegated to the permanent underclass. As a people we lack the essential ingredients to form a community. Hence we look to the "other" for substance, approval, and purpose. Thus removing our blackness to "fit in."

In Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua, she describes her struggle with family, culture and tradition as part of her personal development. Her foundation in culture, even though it differs from her reality, gave her the ability to explore and challenge her relationship with tradition and with the "other". A tree with roots may waver and bend but will always stay anchored to its origin.

The fragmented history of black people lends itself to disembowelment. With no roots in language, religion, tradition, culture, we must look to the "other" to find a place of comfort or ownership. As the gaze of desire develops our construction of reality, we see ourselves less and less as a people and more as a product of a people. When it’s fashionable to be black, that is, when blackness is expectable in the mainstream media, we celebrate our blackness. Unfortunately fashion changes with the season, which leaves black people looking for another existence, another way to fit in.

My childhood experience of being ousted from humanity due to my blackness continues today.

It’s not the "others" disapproving gaze which has me reenacting a scene for Imitation of Life (wishing I could shed my blackness), but black men. A few years ago on a trip to the mall, I found myself feeling uncomfortable at the presents of black males. It was not really their presents but their chose of companionship. You see; myself and the other black women in the mall were either alone, with children or another woman. On the other hand, all 20 or so black males were with women of other nationality. After that I searched for black couple everywhere I went. They were hard to find. Several questions came to mind. I took my inquires to a male friend (he’s black and dates several woman of all nationalities). He told me that black women were too much of a problem to date. There loud, bossy, demanding, and more shocking he stated that black women were emasculating. Here I was again not feeling good enough, smart enough, and not white enough.

It will not be easy for "others" to understand, this dislike for blackness by blacks. There is no pride for our birth in America, and like other transplanted vegetation we must assimilate to the environment if we wish to survive.

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