My Mother

Last post I mentioned my mother.  A beautiful intelligent Black woman with the most musical laugh.  She taught school at a mostly white school.  My neighborhood was safe but not rich.  Everybody knew her and everybody (yes even the whites) respected her.

Are you surprised?  You wouldn't be if you knew her.  She could teach a roomful of children to read, discipline a child without cursing or even THINKING anything undignified.

What did she teach me?  I'm going to try to recall as much of it as possible and I know I'll forget half of it.  Let me tell a story.

When I was about 12 I was easily the biggest kid in the class.  A bunch of little white kids, some other Blacks, and me.  They knew me and they weren't afraid of me, but I didn't know why.  The thought of people being afraid of me just never crossed my mind.  So a couple of times it became clear, and it made me so mad, because whites in town who didn't know me were afraid of me.  They would shy away, the wouldn't look me in the eye.

I was just barely too old to cry about it to my mother.  "Why are they afraid of me?  They think I'm some kinda thug just cause I'm black.  Do I act like the thugs on the TV?  No, I don't.  I'm polite cause that's what you said."

My mother took both of my hands.  She laughed her musical laugh and said, "Son, they are afraid of you because you are a big handsome black boy.  You are just going to keep getting bigger and more handsome so you better get used or it will make you crazy."

I whine about it a little more, but not enough to make her mad.  She said, "What are you going to do?  I'll tell you what.  You are going to be polite - no yelling, no cursing, no bad grammar.  When whites get to know you they won't be scared any more."  That was it.  She changed the subject.  I was helping her make dinner lickety-split.

I hope she never reads this blog, because I'm not real politically correct, but I love my mother and I'll probably write about her every other post.