Just getting you warmed up.
1. Constant fear, stress, and oppression. I had to grow up with stories from my
Great grandmother about night riders (fore-runners to the KKK)burning down houses in the old South (she was from Georgia) if a 'nigger' acted 'uppity'. I also heard about how her grandmother, a slave, and her grandfather, a slave, died when she was only 6...worked to death, she said. If you think none of that has a bearing on my current mental stability (or lack thereof), you're only fooling yourself.
2. My memories of a public pool that was filled in because they township didn't want 'niggers' swimming in it. The town was/is New Brighton, PA. I was 4. That hate was directed at me. The old pool is now a parking lot, and is owned by a small frozen custard chain...
Hank's...
3. Going to an almost all-white High School,
supposedly Christian, and hearing the word nigger directed at me at least twice a week...mostly for being 'uppity', and/or 'forgetting my place'. I had the actual nerve to be in AP classes...back when AP meant something...
4. Not being 'black enough' to play sports...from both sides...but at least getting quasi-acceptance from the 2 other blacks in my graduating class...
5. Living day-to-day, fighting to keep the anger and frustration under control, never letting anybody know how much their words and deeds actually hurt, out of the fear it would make matters worse.
And you wonder why reparations is such a hot-button issue between us? I lived my whole formative life in a pressure-cooker.