Week 10
Tatum Article
In reading the article I realized that I had been in some of those situations. As I think back I grew up in a race-neutral household, my parents did not go out of there way to make sure that we interacted with a diverse group of people. We were surrounded by African Americans and exposed to White Americans in a later stage in our lives. I had not realized how divided society was until I began my high school year, attending Austin High School and it being predominately white (upper class) that I noticed that the color of my skin made a difference if I would be invited to birthday parties and or a trip to the mall on the weekends. Thinking back I do wish that I had been better prepared to deal with what was to come but my parents did the best they could with what they knew. My parents had to endure many civil rights violations during their years, being treated like a non-human, having to take five dollar a week jobs and having to enter houses through the back doors where my grandmother was a maid/housekeeper and raising the upper class whites children. It did not dawn on me that the one child that my grandmother raised happened to be a grade above me, at the same high school and I never knew it until years later when I saw a picture of her in my grandmothers photo album. With all that being said my parents never said a negative word against a white person and dwell on the past and what they had to endure. My parents worked hard and provided us with a home and with the things we needed and most of what we asked for. My father was able to work forty plus hours weekly and receive a Associates Degree and he became the first African American assistant director for the city of Austin water/wastewater department and my mother became one of first supervisors for Travis State School. The only thing I would change about my childhood is that if I could have been a little more prepared for what was on the other side of IH 35 and what people may say or do when I walked into such a high school. I would have love to learn what I know now about African American history and its effects on my people. Though my high school did not offer or encourage any such opportunity for knowing who I am and where I came from. Now a mother of twenty-two and nineteen year old interracial young men, I have made it a point to teach them as much as I can about what it is to be Black in America. Trying to teach them to be proud of who they are and to recognize the importance of African American culture and the culture of their father as well. Teaching them to respect where they came from and they have the opportunity to be whatever they want to be, but they will have to work a litter harder than the average white American. That the choices that make now determines what the future may hold for them and never put a label on an entire race for what the majority of a race is doing and saying against our culture. They know and are confident about who they are and can walk with their heads held high and know NOW the information is there so take it, learn from and use it to change the equalities in our society. Last I am very proud of my parents and as I watch them walk away, their frail bodies but still holding strong, I know they protected us from the ugliness of society and gave us the tools to become who we are today :).