Hope’s Holdouts… How Come I’ve Never Had A Home?
Tags: Mental Health, Life, Race, Life Lessons, Philosophy

Hope’s Holdouts… How Come I’ve Never Had A Home?

How does one learn what they are not taught?

Photo by mwangi gatheca on Unsplash

Race in America has a tortuous history. Tales of love and of vehement hatred inundate the tapestry of our American fabric. The seeds sown in the past grew into majestic sequoias and the roots of hatred took hold while those of love have been all but erased by a kind of macabre natural selection. Our country being separated by race provides evidence of this. We have certainly come a long way, but for the most part, Whites live with Whites, Blacks with Blacks, Latinos with Latinos, and so on. We cannot disconnect our tumultuous past from our troubled present.

Juxtaposed with this fact, I had a distinct, somewhat rare childhood for a black male. Through the hard work of my parents, my family could afford to live in what's publicly understood to be “excellent” school systems. Unfortunately, areas with “excellent” school systems tend not to have many black students. This means I grew up surrounded by folks whose melanin contrasted significantly with mine. When you’re a child, melanin counts tend not to matter so much. That’s the beauty of children, they haven’t been molded by the evils of the world just yet. They see the world through eyes wide with wonderment. Every experience is new and to be cherished, to be immersed in. They seem not to take the present moment for granted as adults are wont to do. If only adults kept this same love of learning as we mature in years, if not always in wisdom. For adults, whose experiences shaped them for better or worse, there is a constant awareness of the differences between them and the next person. But as a child, my ability to have fun and interact with those around me remained unaffected. However, my childhood innocence could not last forever.

As my peers and I grew older, life started to poke holes in that bubble I had been provided by childhood innocence… or ignorance, depending on your view. That bubble where my friends and I saw no difference between us. It burst slowly, starting with jokes about watermelon and fried chicken, moving on to intimations I excelled in sports because of a particular reason. I convinced myself these things were harmless, there was no need to react to those types of juvenile jokes. Turn the other cheek, be the bigger man. I internalized these thoughts in at attempt to rationalize the pain I felt of being “other”, the pain I felt from being singled out for something I had no control over. I forged ahead, a boxer with no one in his corner, fighting through life with no guides and no friends who could understand my internalized battle to just feel “normal”.

My time in high school brought experiences of overt racism and that of a more subtle type. I was called a nigger multiple times, called a monkey during football games by opposing fan section.

The students at my school were doing the same thing, just to the black kids on the other team, so its cool right…?

I could fill up pages of the racism I experienced from the players I played with, what I could sacrifice for the team. And looking back, I sacrificed a lot. Dignity, self respect, an ability to feel like my hard work was worthy of appreciation.

When a junior in high school, the football team was watching film and the team’s starting quarterback Cody Allen stepped out of the room. Unbeknownst to me, someone else in the room had taken his pudding. When he stepped back in and started to fume about his missing pudding, he accused me of taking it and then called me a nigger. Because niggers steal and I was the only one in his general vicinity. No one in the room came to my defense and even though I could have gotten physical (6'3" 205 vs 5'9" 160) I still believed in turning the other cheek and being the bigger person. Honestly, because I had been isolated within the white community so long, I didn’t understand the level of disrespect and vitriol that was displayed that day. Plus, I was all alone. No one else in the room even said anything to him, all these teammates and “friends” that I had been playing with for years.

They were always eager for a moment of weakness from me, to see me fold from the pressure of representing so much more than just myself. This intensified my desire to find any semblance of a home, anywhere that could provide a shred of comfort, somewhere I wouldn’t have to be “on” all the time, where I could let my guard down.

Another instance branded itself to my conscious for perpetuity. We were learning new words in Spanish class and a noose popped up on the screen. Another student, Ryan Holmes, (also on the football team) said “Oh dang Keith, you better start running.” Everyone in the room laughed, even the teacher. Oh Profe Kirk, I can’t imagine this being your finest hour.

Well, not everyone was laughing, because I was staring down at my desk, desperate for some kind of sign from the universe, some kind of epiphany to let me know how best to respond. It was already hard enough being the only black kid in all of my classes, now I couldn’t even focus on learning without being the butt of someone’s joke. A joke that referenced the actual deaths of many black bodies, a joke that reminded me that only forty years ago, it was no big deal for folks in the south, my fellow students’ parents and grandparents, to participate or be complicit in a young black man such as myself, dangling from a tree, a strange fruit for public consumption.

Desperate for some comeback that eluded me, some kind of rebuttal, some way to save face, the universe must have placed the wrong address on my inspiration because it never reached its destination. Emotion welled up inside me such that the dam of toughness I had built burst and my only option was to stare at my desk while hot, shameful tears fell from my eyes.

A major part of adolescence starts when you realize that you have feelings for other people, feelings deeper than simply enjoying playing with them in gym class. Romance and your awkward fumbling at learning how to navigate these waters are a major part of growth as an emotional being. Many people still carry a fear of rejection or betrayal from things that happened to them during their formative years. Race played a large part in my relationships during high school, or to be honest, the lack of them. My father and I one day discussed relationships when I was in middle school, “Keith, I know your white friends will tell you that they are okay with you dating white girls, but deep down they are not. And you need to be careful.” At the time I didn’t understand, but his words would ring with perfect clarity just a few years later.

There was no confusion as to why I received little attention from the girls at my school. It was because I was black. This caused some girls to automatically write me off as a candidate for dating, some girls to automatically say no to whether I was attractive or not, some girls to say behind closed doors, yeah I think Keith is cute, but I’d never date him. I tried to ignore these things, to stand on my own theory that superficial looks aren’t important anyways, how ignorant is it of us to judge someone based on something that they have no control over? That they were born into? Even with these wise words reverberating in my brain, deep down, I still felt ugly. I must be unattractive or things would be different, that my skin mattered, but so did the fact I simply wasn’t attractive enough for anyone to take a chance on me. I felt less than, I felt like I needed to keep my mouth shut about who I liked because it would never happen.

Then one day, lo and behold, I learned through a female friend that a girl did actually like me. A white girl at that. And she was cute. I couldn’t believe it. I was finally getting a chance to explore young love, something I had resigned myself to believing was not meant for me in this lifetime. I jumped in with both feet. We texted all the time, called each other on the phone at night, spent late nights talking to each other in her Jeep. That Jeep was where I got my first kiss.. Finally, a sense of normalcy had arrived, through all the dog whistles, racist comments, and prejudice I had to go through, I could feel that much closer to normal when I was with her. It was such a beautiful feeling at first, to feel wanted for the first time. To feel appreciated by someone. But once again, life had something in store that would remind me that I was still a black man, in a country where that meant I could never be considered normal.

I figured that this girl and I would go to the homecoming dance together, because that’s what you do when you like someone in high school. Asking someone out, agonizing over if they’ll say yes or not, trying to get a group together so everyone’s parents can fawn over them while they snap pictures, it was just how things went. I asked this girl and she said yes. I was ecstatic. Finally, I wouldn’t be going with someone as just a friend, I was going to have a girl that liked me on my arm. That chose me.

But it wasn’t to be. She came back a few days later and had to call the date off. I tried to play it off, but I was devastated. Why? What had I done? Turns out, my only crime was being born with black skin. Her father found out that his daughter wanted to go to the dance with a black boy and shot it down immediately. Can you imagine how a 16 year old felt, being told that he couldn’t take the girl he liked to the homecoming dance, literally only because he was black? That the only reason was the circumstances of his birth, a matter he had no choice in? It didn’t matter that he won county spelling bees, made All County football teams, pivoted from starting on the varsity basketball team to playing the lead in the school musical. No, none of those accomplishments mattered, because they were accomplished while having dark skin.

Looking back, my later struggles with depression come as no surprise. From an early age I was taught that my hard work meant nothing. My constant drive to succeed, to show people that I could not just be defined by my skin, that you had to define me by my brilliance, humor, and lust for learning, it failed. And it failed over, and over, and over, and over again.

When her father found out we were still in contact some time later, he took her phone away, yelled at her for being a nigger lover, and grounded her. Because she committed the cardinal sin of seeing me as a person and accepting that my skin color didn’t define who I was. What message does that send a young black man? Girls were looked down upon for liking black guys. A girl simply being associated with me could make her an outcast. What kind of evil was present within this dark skin that caused this?

It was like my black skin was radioactive, like having a stench attached to you that couldn’t be washed away by any accomplishment. I was less than, someone to look down on. Someone to not be associated with. This is a lesson taught again and again throughout history. Your dark skin makes you unworthy of love. Unworthy of respect. Unworthy of a shot at happiness. Acceptance from our peers plays a definite role in our emotional wellbeing. And I would always stand apart from them.

Then, my friends were in a Wendy’s with her, the next guy she dated, and his friend, and overheard them making fun of her when they found out she used to date a black guy. They asked why? You must have wanted some of his welfare money? My friends didn’t say anything, but made sure to report this back to me.

Looking back, I wish they would have said something. Wished they would have stood up for me when I couldn’t stand up for myself. But just because I had white friends, that didn’t make them allies. They weren’t willing to stick their necks out in order to stand up for their black friend , to say, hey, you don’t talk about my friend this way. And for a long time, I didn’t blame them. Being black was my problem, my burden to carry. No one had ever stood up for me.

My confidence was being sliced to ribbons because I felt stuck. I felt stuck because this skin I had nothing to do with, was making my life worse. Making people not accept me. Making people actively bully me. What kills me the most is those things I could control, I did. I was a straight A student. I wasn’t the most well behaved student but I was known to be very engaging, well spoken and charismatic when intrigued by the lesson. I was even good at sports. I worked hard, went to practice basically year round. It felt like everyone at school knew who I was, even if you didn’t know me personally. I can’t help but to feel, if I was white, my life would have been completely different. I would have been looked up to and respected for my multitude of talents and positive qualities. More interest would have been taken in a white, multi-sport athlete who happened to to be in the top 10% of his class. Who was nice to everyone, from the jocks he played on teams with, to the theater kids he did a musical with, and to the nerds that he shared classes with. But instead these things seemed to go unnoticed, even purposefully ignored.

And when people saw things happening to me, they didn’t speak up. They were complicit. They didn’t see these things as attacks on my very humanity, attacks based on attitudes that had nothing to do with me. Honestly, I guess that means, they didn’t really see anything at all. Because you react when you see things, and I felt invisible almost all of the time.

Another quirk of my upbringing was how often folks separated me from my black skin. I had always been intelligent, a voracious reader, and my insightful nature allowed me to inject humor into most situations. I loved to learn and learning came easy to me. White folks started to share with me some enlightening information, that I was not “really” black. There was no way. I spoke perfect English. I always had a belt on, I didn’t line up with their preconceived notions of what a black man should be. As if I should have apologized that I couldn’t teach them how to drink lean and demean women on top of catchy beats.

Harkening back to these days, what hurts the most is the fact that it dehumanized me. No matter what I did, people would never just see me for me. They would always see this skin I was born in first, this skin I didn’t ask for, this skin that covers up the fact that we are all the same underneath it. I was in a state of constant confusion. I’m being told that I am wonderfully unique, I can achieve whatever I put my mind to, but my actions fall by the wayside when determining who I am as a human. When measured against pre existing prejudices, I was rendered completely helpless.

Fortunately, I was able to save my sanity with some convenient explanations. They don’t know what they are talking about I said. They are just ignorant I told myself. They know nothing of black people except what they’ve seen on MTV or ESPN. There was no reason to even give them the time of day.

I graduated from high school and looked forward to starting my new life as a college student. My older cousin already attended Georgia Southern and I was looking forward to linking up with him once I arrived here. Him and his group of friends pretty much adopted me and I haven’t looked back ever since. This was my first time ever being surrounded by people of my own kind, people that looked like me, people whose experiences had also been shaped by this skin we were born into.

I was excited as anyone could be, but my excitement soon faded. Why you ask? Because as I started my life as a college student, I found myself being told the same things that were shared with me in high school, only this time by folks who looked like me. Keith you’re not really black. Keith you were really supposed to be a white boy. These comments hit me to my very core… No longer could I simply explain this by saying they knew nothing of black people. They themselves were black! My one opportunity to feel like I truly belonged somewhere, and it had escaped from my grasp, elusive as an attempt to capture a fistful of the wind. I was a cultural orphan. I didn’t have a home anywhere, whether the people were white or black, these things did not matter.

Luckily, in my present state of mind I know that all people are wonderfully unique and deserving of respect as an individual ,but this conclusion involved dark days for me. Days where the only stare I could stomach was the one the wall returned to me. Days where the all encompassing darkness of my thoughts paralyzed my legs, because what was the point of moving? Of trying, in making an effort.

I don’t want the next young black kid to go through that period of intense depression. I don’t want that next young black kid to feel like they have to hide parts of themselves in order for people to accept them. I fortunately made it through to the other side with the help of some great books and patience.

Some people don’t have a support system and could get lost forever in that wave of dark thoughts. I want to be that light for them. In a day and age where it seems like the only places black people are widely accepted are for the entertainment of others, how can I convince the black youth they are not confined to this box society places them in? How can I teach them that being themselves is not a crime, that it is the only way to true happiness?

The most insidious result of racism today, in addition to the erasure of black bodies due to government neglect and apathy, has been the erasure of the black spirit. I see kids today and they don’t know that there is a whole wide world beyond their street corner. They don’t believe that there is more for them out there. Society has placed blinders on our black community and I need to know how to take them off.

They’re stealing that most precious thing that allows us to keep our heads above water…. Hope. At the end of the day I just want to know…. How do we give our communities the ability to breathe again?