To Supriti about gRACE

[Guest guest]

Supriti wrote:

 

I have been biting my tongue hard since the discussion began, because I knew

my gut knee jerk reaction would be to tell all of you to just shut up! -

what do any of you know about it!!! Of course I knew that gut reaction was a

childish response to be born of a white mother and an anonymous black father,

being an orphan raised as a foster child in a "mixed" neighborhood with a

"mixed" family and being the only black girl in a grade school/high school of

white princesses, a childish response to being called the NNNNN word, a

childish response to being told at four years old that "Michael" the love of my

four

year old life and I could NOT BE FRIENDS, COULD NOT PLAY TOGETHER.because he

was white..a childish response to being told my nose was too high and my

hair was too nappy...

Dear Supriti ~ I promised myself I was not going to respond to any more of

the posts about this topic, but you have spoken of your own true experience and

your feelings about it.

I don't think your feelings were or are childish, though they may have been

the feelings of a child. Awhile back I wrote about an experience I had when I

played with a black child while

visiting my grandmother. The reaction of my grandmother and aunt stunned and

frightened me. I could not wrap my child brain around what they were yelling

at me for, and it didn't make any sense to me. I never believed them, or the

rest of my family, racists all.

 

I liked what you said about adding a "g" to the front of "race." What a

wonderful way to transform thinking, feeling and dialog ... grace. In a way it

is

like how I sometimes wrap "He" around the word, "art" to describe how I feel

about my art work ... works of heART.

 

Now I will go back into my cave of Silence, but I had to thank you for what

you shared.

 

Jai Ma ~ Linda