So Gramps died early this summer. I can't recall exactly when because I didn't want to think about it much. He had made me promise that as soon as they told me he was dead to finish that communication and not accept any further, and that I was not to go to his funeral or ask for any of this things.
When he first became involved with me they told him that he could help me by teaching me how to be white, but like me he is good at teaching, and I really thought I was white and so they came back to him and told him that he had to teach me my place and he said but the whites are in the top place and you told me to teach her to be white and they said not like that and I said I can't understand what you mean. They had told him if he didn't teach me to be white they wouldn't let me work, they wouldn't let me have a house they might not even let me eat, and that is why he agreed in the first place knowing how important my culture was to me already, but when it became clear that they would never allow me any of that no matter what he or I did, we had to strategize differently, because sometimes battles didn't need to be fought that particular day, and there were things that I could see for myself because of the hypocrisy of my situation that a lot of people in my category of contempt had no chance to see, and when I was finally herded up with them I could tell them about these things.
There were times when people seemed to act a little better, and Gramps went back and forth about what should be in the forefont of my mind at any given time, but he overheard conversations among Becky, Bo, Bill, Rosy and Kathy and Heather about what they planned for me as soon as he was dead as many as 25 years or more before he actually passed. When they knew he was listening or when they talked to him directly they could convince him that they had positive feelings for me, and that made what they were saying even worse, because he knew that they planned to talk about "tough love" and that they were abusing me for "my own good" and that they were laughing about separating me from all honors I had ever received, any credentials I might sneak out and acquire and that the harder I worked to "live up to a higher standard" the more likely I was just to upset about how people continued to treat me. When I was homeless in Nashville Tn a black woman said to me that she had never seen a person as white skinned as I was in this situation but she said that people sometimes were born with a negro degree, and while it wasn't worth a lot to a lot of people, there were some people who needed negroes for stuff so a person could survive as a negro, but once you have a negro degree the only letters anyone will ever add to that is uppity and that is why people responded the way I did when I said but couldn't you just sit there and get through highschool, it was hard for me too, because even high school graduate equaled uppity so since I already had the letters before my name I might as well go back to the university I had started, and that a lot of people there would kill to be in my place, because even though they believed every word and more than I had told them about what had gone on in my childhood home ( I think they knew about my children before I did) that as long as people were playing a game that they were related to me I could make use of that situation if for nothing more than a ride out of Nashville which I badly needed because a cousin of mine (real one on the darker side of the family) had shown up and told people there not to induct me into the Bloods because I'd lived in Northwest Indy for a couple of years in childhood.
After having been homeless that summer of 99, in that way where I really had no one but did have a shelter I could hang around and program to go through (I wont be doing any more christian based programs) coming back to a university town where I was clearly not wanted and sitting through classes where I was not welcome was considerably easier to do. They say I dropped out last time because I "had too much fun" but I know that I was suffering from the effects of date rape drugs and that something significant happened at Thanksgiving break in 1990 that caused me to lose focus entirely but I don't recall it.
This time I "had no fun at all" and though I was suffering significant dysphoria over the lifetime of abuse and trying in futility to possibly dress in some way that wasn't "asking for" sexual and public bullying they really didn't seem to hold anything back yet I made it through and I got the paper twice, with a BA in History and an MA in Applied Linguistics.
Nothing changed in how people regarded me though and I wonder too if graduating highschool really made the difference that woman said it did. I can only imagine how people would treat the same me if I hadn't. I might have a little less self esteem but I'm crafty with that one, I'd have found a way to be proud of myself somehow.
Sometimes people say I'd be better off with a criminal record, but Gramps was explicit about that one, that they tell people that, but its completely not true, like the education thing isn't true really, and I can see that though I was strong writer all along, I certainly have a lot more understanding of the process and more research skills than I used to have, as well as a highly disciplined highly focused experience under my belt. And though I can't make people grant me any kind of right by talking to them or reason apparently, I frequently think of the people who listen to me when I am trying to and about flash points in chemistry and if enough molecules start moving around maybe a new substance will form.
