Late Night Confession

I confess...my neighbors stink! Not literally, but in a non-neighborly way they aren't so good at this neighborly thing.

When I was a kid I had my share of racial slurs thrown at me...oreo....halfbreed..etc, etc. Even though I grew up in a mostly hispanic neighborhood, I don't know that I paid much attention to the differences that existed. I just lived in that world and I was more worried about being the "husky" kid to be concerned with color. My hair was short and nappy and my light skin and eyes didn't make for a distinct me one way or another. I always got segregated for my weight first before my color. So the names didn't mean much until I got older. Then as I tried to fit in one group or the other, it made a difference.

I read The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey by Toi Derricotte when I was 27. She is a light skinned Black woman who most often passed for white. And she said that when she stood next to her husband she always forgot her lightness. She lived in a black world and felt that way. To me those were the most perfect words ever. I finally felt so comfortable in my skin. And then I started dating my husband who on a daily basis felt or was being discriminated against. Usually it was just his perspective but who's gonna tell a 6 foot plus, 280lb black man that its all in his head. That's his world. But it wasn't mine....

I was never out rightly discriminated against, nor felt that way in my adulthood. That was until we got here...boy do my neighbors stink....and it is challenging to find peace when all you want to do is:

1. leave bean pies on all their doorsteps

2. leave a pile of toys in front of the door of the lady who says my kids are ALWAYS in the way

3. rock T-Pain until all hours of the night while sitting on the porch with a 40 in my hand

4. invite all of both sides of the family over and have em play dominoes right in the front yard

5. stand out and yell at the kids on how to stop acting like a n--ga or i'm gonna whoop their lil a's!

Oh I giggle just writing this list. I know its wrong but its the only way I can keep the peace. And who says our imaginations die out when we grow older....

oh and a p.s. i looked up "typical black behavior" just to see what other ideas i could come up with.....wow, this world is C-R-A-Z-Y!