Racism, Patience and Education - A first hand story.

GASP!  Nobody Told Me!  Why did nobody mention it?!  I cannot believe I didn’t know!

Someone just told me my daughter is not white!

Oh.  My.  Gosh.   Really?  (Heavy Sarcasm).

 

I look very much like a potato farmer in honour of my Irish and English heritage, and the person who I look most like is my Irish Grandad.

 

My daughter is half from me, and half from an English chap whose parents were Jamaican. 

So, he is dark skinned, born here in England, is English, but his ancestry is Jamaican. 

He is not Jamaican per se, can you see the difference? 

His heritage, of which we are all proud, is Jamaican.

 

So Missy, she was born with a very tanned complexion, beautiful straight nose and straight black hair.

Over the years her hair curled, but it is European hair in spiral curls, not so much afro as Irish-fro, which is a real thing, ask any Irish woman with crinkly hair on a blustery morning.

 

When my daughter straightens her hair, she looks Indian (dots, not feathers – to quote the beloved Robin Williams).

Indian parents of her school friends speak to her in Urdu and for a while got miffed with her when she would not realise she was being spoken to.

In the end, when it all came to light what was happening, they all laughed and are now on speaking terms again J

She’s a firm favourite with other children’s parents which pleases me no end.

 

When my daughter leaves her hair natural, she looks like a Diva.

Total Gone Crazy Big Old Spiral Curl Adornment.

She looks like she should be in a Beyoncé video or an 80’s Brat Pack film.

It is awesome!

 

So back to the shock revelation.

Several times people have told her “Why don’t you go back to where you came from”.

She’s had most of her classmates in junior school try to persuade her she was adopted, because the kids hadn’t seen her dad, only me!

She’s been mistaken for an asylum seeker but I assured people it was only Grunge Rock Fashion, not hobo-refugee chic.

She’s been mistaken for an immigrant and accosted by knuckle heads.

She’s been spoken to in Greek when we go to Greece.

She’s been spoken to in Spanish when we went to the Spanish Islands.

She’s been spoken to in Jamaican English when we go to Jamaica.

She’s been followed by security staff in the shopping centres.

She’s been yelled at for “being racist” by overly concerned, politically correct, liberal leftie white people when joking with friends whether she should sit at the front or the back of the bus after a history lesson on the American Civil Rights movement.  (This was a bumpy one... in a back and forth, supported by a friend who confirmed she was part Jamaican... Missy advised Leftie-Lady "You clearly thought I was Indian, which is presumptuous on your part.  I am black and I can joke about 'those darned civil rights activists always getting on the bus' if I want to").

And was yelled at to stop lying!

She’s been refused service in a Bible Bookstore because, even though she was holding the money in her hand, she was told “these books are not for your kind”.

 

And the kid laughs it off!

 

Now I have a lovely little generation of children in my class, when I tell them that the teenagers will be teaching Sunday school this week, confused and unable to hide it, that I introduce Missy as my daughter.  Their little children brains are perplexed that this curly haired, very tall, all makeup’d up and glamorous girl could possibly be related to me.

 

Then the next week we chat about the people who shared their feelings from the pulpit, my daughter being one of them, and the kids get confused again, still unable to make the leap of how potato farmer me could have a daughter like Missy.

 

One of the children leans in to me and whispers, as though it is a secret, “She wears a lot of make up”, and I reply, “Yes, isn’t she beautiful” and they nod.

Then the next week that the child is in class again, I see the whisperer wearing bright red lipstick in honour of Missy, and I smile at her, and she smiles back, thrilled I’ve noticed.

Fighting Psychopaths

I have been fighting people who fit the profile of psychopaths and surviving the destruction they spread all the days of my life. 

It has been close contact conflict.

It was all done in the “First person”, one to one.

Not “those people over there” but rather “these people, here, in this room”.

At first it was one generation to the next, me being the child (with help from adults, this is not a solo venture).

Then it was a peer to peer relationship lasting 24 years.

I’m am tired, deep down to my bones weary tired.

However, I’ll keep going because self determination is the prize which I have won.
I am made for this and can go again right now, right from the beginning if I have to.  It holds no fear.
For the rest of my days I’ll keep plugging through because this is who I am.

Let’s take a moment to try and paint a picture:

Do you know how tiring it is when, for example, you watch over a bunch of hyperactive and disobedient children?

When you first take responsibility for the kids you try to be strict, No, Don’t do that, but all you get back is a heightening of the mania and they end up a spitting, thrashing and whirling dervish.

So then you develop coping strategies and mould their behaviour where possible and ignore the bits that are destructive but aren’t actually hurting someone.

That is the tiniest taste of what it is like to try to survive in a situation with a psychopath.

If a psychopath walked up to you for the first time and handed you a business card which said “Joe Bloggs, Psychopath at Large” you would say “Oh, that’s nice, Joe is it, let me show you the buffet table” and then you would dump them there and walk away with barely a glance backwards.

But they don’t hand out business cards.

Quite the opposite.

The clever ones are particularly deceptive.

Phase 1. 
The fun for a psychopath is in being charming, frequently they’re well-presented and handsome, they are attentive and they say they would move mountains. They often present themselves as a rescuer and when they are around, you feel like a million dollars. This phase can last for weeks or years.

Phase 2.

In subsequent encounters, probably over a time frame of years, they cannot hide their attempt to dominate the other person and erode their sense of self (schools for the kids, where to eat, placement of cushions, who can come in the house, when you can go out so it is convenient for them), bringing out the indignant rage, the sulking, their sense of entitlement, their contempt at any comparison to people who do not behave like that.

Phase 3.
Later, if the other party refuses to capitulate, things become physically dangerous rather than “just” emotionally dangerous.

Have you heard about how “their eyes changed” or “they’re a nut job when they get going”?  Yep, alarm bells and warning signs.

The daft thing, for all their charm, is that they don’t know that they are not particularly bright and that people, “normal” people do give and take in relationships so their attempt at dominance is ridiculous because love is there for the sharing, not the taking.  They don’t feel love like civilians do, they feel dominant, superior, all powerful.  Love is not in the equation.  Sure, they’ll say the words to woo someone back, but the feeling is not there.  And no, their emotional bullying is not passion, it is emotional bullying.

The fastest way to make a psychopath leave you alone is to walk away.  Out of sight, pretty much out of mind after a while. 

Don’t get in to the mind games, don’t think this is some Teen-Lit and angst filled novel, don’t try to fix them because even their parents didn’t succeed, don’t buy in to their “my girlfriend left me, woe is me” schpeil because the girlfriend left for a reason.

Repeat to yourself

“I am a drama free zone, I am worthy of genuine love, I have myself and my friends, I don’t need validation, I validate myself, it is never too early and almost never too late to walk away” and then do just that.

Making plans for when it's over *Cough-Divorce-Cough*

Within the next few weeks, my email inbox will revert to receiving only notes from friends, bills, reminders to buy TV licences, and money off vouchers.

I’ll cease having to host and give space to the vast amounts of divorce paperwork.

I can hardly believe that the end is kind of in sight, especially if I stand on a step ladder and use binoculars.

It’s still going to take some time, I’m patient, but we cannot but help have answers very soon.

 

I’m not sure what I’ll do with all the spare email capacity and in my mind’s eye I perceive it like the electricity surge after the Super Bowl games (you know about that, right, where the utility companies have to be on alert during the adverts and at the conclusion because demand on the grid spikes)

I’m not sure what I’ll do with all the freed up time and all the intellectual capacity made available.

However, I’m sure looking forward to finding out.