See on Scoop.it – Mixed American Life

“I was taught early on that whiteness, inside or outside of me, was dangerous.
…
That pain came not only from the presence of racism, but from my personal investment in it.
…
since I had stopped looking for racism around every corner, I hadn’t experienced any.
…
As a woman who had been trained to be racially paranoid before I could read, it was a freedom I had never felt.
Accepting myself as multiracial requires a great deal of forgiveness, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a well of forgiveness within me ready to tap. The truth does that, it opens up stores of forgiveness that cannot be accessed when it is being repressed. I found myself forgiving my family, forgiving myself, forgiving both white and black people, and forgiving of all of my ancestors. Talking to a friend I heard myself say, “One group of my ancestors (English) enslaved another group of my ancestors (Africans) and murdered another group (Native American). (As far as I am aware the Italians are in the clear). I am ready to be at peace with that.”
This blew me away.
I am ready to be at peace.
I have to be at peace. I spent too many years in the angst of a deception, staring at my truth in the mirror and obscuring it through the tools of anger, paranoia, and fear, trying to prove to everyone else that I exist within their parameters. Now I choose to look in the mirror and see a miracle of history, the dissonance and conflict that led to who I am can exist in a happy person, and maybe one day, in a happy culture.”
See on beyondtalk2.wordpress.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
You must be logged in to post a comment.