How I Learned to Be Black in Mississippi

I have many views on what being black in America means, most of which contradict one another.

For years I believed it meant fear, discrimination, anger, pain, and long suffering. I believed the depiction of a history that’s been drilled into our minds repetitively, but never truly explained. The South forced me to believe these assertions were true, and the world beyond the South proved even worse.

It started with my grandmother. The narrative I will tell is a combination of my perception of what happened to her and with stories I was told growing up, neither of which came from her, but are factual, to say the least.

She was young and innocent. She cleaned houses with her mother for a living. It was unusual that she cleaned alone, but this day Mary took on double duty at Mr. Jones’s home, deciding she could handle the task herself. As she cleaned, he watched her and pondered his next move. He knew that if he acted on his thoughts, no one would ever catch him. He knew she’d stay silent forever, or else.

Then it happened: the rape. Her innocence was torn into pieces, encrypting the memory in her mind forever. Her soft cries for help went unnoticed by anyone who could hear; a despicable crime to be solved by no one.

The rape damaged her, and even worse, the product of that evening was growing inside of her. She was taunted, ashamed. But she never showed fear, worry, anger, or hate.

She had a baby boy. Mr. Jones’s wife wanted him dead. Mary protected him. She loved him unconditionally. He survived.

That child is my father.

It’s worth mentioning that Mr. Jones isn’t the actual name of my grandmother’s rapist. We never discovered who he was. His identity died with her. I never met my grandfather, and neither did my dad.

My grandmother died this year from a brain hemorrhage while she was cleaning a house. She was 77. The family that she worked for was aware that she was ill, and they still allowed her to work. She was abused during life and death. From the story the medics told us, the family found her slumped over, unconscious on a bed. No one knew how long she’d been there, but one thing was certain: she was dead when EMTs found her.

Those people never contacted us, not to explain what happened or to share their condolences.

What I’ve realized from my grandmother’s tragic experiences and my own personal experiences with discrimination is, if you live a life full of peace and equality, outside parties can’t interfere.

My grandmother was raped and died under the hands and noses of white people, but did not once speak negatively about them.

For a while I didn’t quite understand it, but now I do— and it forces me to ask myself why something as simple as the color of another person’s skin should effect me at all.

We are all human, each person varying in characteristics and interests. What does color have to do with anything?

I’ve started to believe that race was a label created to keep humans separated forever, hating each other to keep control.

If we’re all human, why can’t we act like it?