There was a time that I attended Rockford Lutheran High School. It was a yearly tradition to have “Slave Day.” It may have been during homecoming week, I don’t remember, but it was a “fun filled” time when upper-classmen got to “bid” on freshmen and the “bought” freshman was a “slave” for the day.
I remember my father and pastor, at the time, came to school for a meeting with the principal. I remember the principal looking at me incredulously and saying, “But Lisa, I thought you were having so much fun!” I felt so much shame. I was one of a handful of “darker hued” students and I honestly didn’t know how to react.
I already was struggling to fit in and to form genuine friendships…and I remember feeling so sorry. Sorry that my father had called this meeting and sorry that I smiled at the “slave auction” and sorry that I didn’t know how to appreciate this special tradition and sorry that I had not became righteously indignant and created a scene during the gathering and screamed something like, “Black Power,” and sorry that my dad had to “donate” time and work there in the summers to help with my tuition and just plain sorry that my black self, stubbornly, continued to breathe in that office with all eyes on me.
I HATED who I was while I attended that school. I became the “self fulfilling prophecy.” I often think back to the education I received from the 4th grade through the 10th grade in parochial schools. I know beyond knowing that my ability to write fluently and effectively, with little or no thought to the “how” of it, is a direct result of my time with my 4th grade teacher. I know that it was the collection of books and the cozy loft I got to read in while in the 5th grade is the reason I became the avid an reader.
But I now believe that children, all children, should have that same solid primary education I had AND be celebrated for just simply being. My daughter, after much soul searching and many tears, decided that her daughter would receive a public school education because SHE will be the agent of change in the current system of public education. She does not need to be sequestered away from her community and peers that look like her and live like her in order to be educated properly. That’s GARBAGE!
*It’s that fantasy of exclusivity that is the root of needless and harmful and further, shameful divides between children and classes and social stations and even allows the first thought to hold a slave auction in the classroom.*
MY grandgirl has a TEAM of loving, educated, hyper-vigilant, and ever-present family members that 1. Protect 2. Provide and 3. Prepare her as we send her into the world. We have become leaders unto ourselves and started a movement in our own home because we understand that the current social and political climate we live and breathe in is going to require a much different fight than the one that took place in the 1960’s.
The very fact that in 2017, this is even a conversation, speaks to the virulent and festering wound that continues to keep this country so very sick. Donald Trump is NOT the problem. He is merely a caustic SYMPTOM of the Original Wound that has been left unchecked (protected) and has metastasized. I wonder just how long this Wound can be danced over by people clasping hands and singing, “Kumbaya!” and “We Shall Overcome?”
I don’t know the answer to that. But I DO know this: I plan to be a voice that becomes a part of a new narrative in this country. I pledge to give my all as I articulate the nuances of our present day battle for Justice.
THIS moment in our history can be the revolution that prefaces a complete renaissance of the black experience in this country.
Yours in the Battle,
Ruby TruthSeeker
#storyteller
All Rights Reserved. Lisa Partee/Ruby TruthSeeker. 2017.