From Not Belonging to America to Belonging, and Knowing That Belonging is Precarious For So Many

Another installment in my June theme of "Transitions"

I’ve got my hands over my ears trying to shield my soul from the sound of Trump blaring into his megaphone about “illegals” and “foreign invaders.”

I’ve been dysregulated since this morning.

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Tiny me at three and four years of age is tugging on my t-shirt, reminding me that at that tender age I was already terribly perceptive, already too aware, that something was wrong with my parents’ marriage, and with my Daddy, and with me, because they were “Interracial,” he was “Black” and I was “a Mulatto.”

Now these tiny kids on the streets of LA and elsewhere around the country are learning that something is wrong with their parents and with themselves. And it breaks my fucking heart.

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In 1954, when the Supreme Court struck down segregated schooling in Brown v. Board of Education, the unanimous opinion said segregation generated in Black children "a feeling of inferiority...that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone."

Tell me about it.

On this very day in 1968, when the Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional, I was six months old and was not yet aware that my parents’ marriage and my very life were considered transgressive, out-of-bounds, outside-the-lines, and problematic. But I would soon know it deeply in my bones.

It would take well into my adulthood, when America was transitioning toward an embrace of its multiracial people and families, for me to salve and heal those wounds and learn to love myself.

The other-izing of those of us deemed a-normal is as American as apple pie.

It damn hurts to be judged based on your identity.

It just does.

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I’m writing this to witness the psychological impact of what is being said and done right now to the children and their parents. Because I have un-belonged, and belonged, and I know the precariousness, and I know that not knowing whether you will be deemed ok or demeaned assaults the soul.

My heart goes out to the humans who came seeking a better life, as humans have consistently done in coming to this land from so many elsewheres. Since always. To do the work to make a better life, and to grow and pick the food, build the buildings, clean the homes and offices, maintain the lawns and gardens, drive the cars, work in the restaurants, provide health care and child care, and do the jobs many Americans feel are beneath them yet they expect will be done by someone, and to come away despised.

(How sick is it to need for the work to be done, yet despise the worker? To be so dependent upon others whom you regard as less-worthy humans such that you despise them? Perhaps it’s the relative need and dependence you have upon immigrants that makes you think less of yourself and in turn makes you hate them as a way not to hate yourself.)

What is wrong with US?

No.

What is WRONG with us, America???

What is wrong.

Is wrong.

What.

Just, what.

My God help us.

America is transitioning yet again. Those who fear the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy are trying to claw it all back. Who will we be? I have no answers. Only hope.

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This post is part of my June theme: “Transitions.” I invite you to join my Zoom call on June 22 to talk about a personal transition in YOUR life. Come prepared to share, and to be witnessed without judgment. The link to register is below my signature (this is premium content offered to paid subscribers).

xo