Black in America – Part A

So, I watched part of this show last night (I TIVO’d it so I can watch it, IN FULL, with hubby so we and our families can talk about this later). The part I saw (the first 30 minutes or so)…they weren’t saying anything NEW. I felt like I was watching a re-run of our life’s experiences. It could use some work, though. <- more on that in another post.

So, here is my PERSONAL take on being Black in America. I’ll start with the education part.

I was born in the midwest, and raised in a two-parent home in the deep south. BOTH of my parents are educators (they both hold doctorate degrees). I have an older sister and an older brother. My siblings and I were never told we had to go to college, but always knew it was something we wanted to do. I was, basically, raised in education. Like I said, my parents taught on the college level and both hold doctorates.

Education has been the foundation of my family for as long as I can remember. I never had blood relatives in the state where I was raised, but had a HOST of extended family that would praise you when you did well, chastise you when you didn’t and ALWAYS kept an eye on you. This extended family would give you contacts when you went out of town, KNEW what you liked to do and would keep you in tune with those things and ALWAYS kept an eye on you (notice a pattern here?? It does take a village).

Everything around me was education from the people I was raised around to the house I grew up in. Whenever I would ask my parents what something was, they were QUICK to tell me to, first, spell it then go look it up in the dictionary or the set of 1964 encyclopedias in the study. Notice I said study. We had a room with two small built-in bookcases that were full of books (mainly, textbooks and adult study books). The mailman would CRACK on us saying that we received more mail than the entire street, combined, due to all of the magazines that would come to the house. EVERY morning, my parents would read the newspaper (Mom would sit at the table and get a kick out of the comics, too!). I once questioned a book that my Dad was reading that TOTALLY was against anything we believed in. I asked him WHY he was reading it. He quickly told me, “You must understand how the other side thinks and read what they believe in. Otherwise, you can never defeat them.” Can you say LIGHT BULB moment. Whenever we would mispronounce a word, our mother was QUICK to correct us and make us say it slow so that we COULD pronounce it correctly (our Mom was also a speech pathologist). For the longest, I couldn’t say AINT because “that word is not in the dictionary” (yeah, I am telling my age now). See what I mean about the HOUSE being educational?

I could NEVER go home alone after school while in elementary school. I was ALWAYS either picked up by my father and taken home or I took the school bus to the campus where they worked and stayed there until one of them got off work. Best believe that I wasn’t sitting idle. I was either told to go to the library and read, run errands for them on campus (hey, isn’t that child labor and illegal?! LOL) or I sat in one of the empty classrooms and read. I, also, don’t remember having an idle summer. EVERY summer of my life was occupied with summer programs of some sort.

By the time I made it junior high school, I became involved in school activities that allowed me to participate in summer camps (yearbook, drill team, choir, etc.). Again, NEVER an idle summer to sit and watch TV all day.

When I entered high school, I had cheerleader practice and camps every summer and a part-time job in the latter years. Again, never an idle summer.

In high school, it came down to college choices and schools began to write, I began to talk to others about their schools, Mom and Dad, big sister and big brother all gave me their opinions of their schools, etc. I knew I loved math and science. I have ALWAYS been VERY analytical. I am NOT a huge fan of writing (not my forte’). Engineering was the first thing that came to mind when choosing a college major due to my mathematical strengths. When I started looking at colleges, I knew I wasn’t ready for a BIG CITY nor was a ready for a huge school (10000+). I applied to both HBCUs and majority schools. I actually received a substantial scholarship to SMU. I started leaning toward going there because of the money I received, but my Mom and Dad knew (don’t they always know?!) that I should look at all of the schools equally, that I applied to. When it came to decision time, my Mom just FLAT out asked where did I want to go. I told her where, but that they didn’t offer any money. My Mom and Dad said if that is where I want to go, they’d find the money and I’d just better not go there and “mess up”.

That leads to ANOTHER education-related topic. Priorities. My parents’ priorities were to educate their three children. THAT is where their money went. Yes, they could have lived in a bigger house and driven nicer cars, but they socked away money for their childrens’ education. Now, in this day and time, how many parents can say that they live in a smaller place or drive a smaller car for the sacrifice of their children? That is debatable…..

My siblings and I are all college graduates with post-baccalaureate education. I am VERY proud of that and have no problem telling the world. I know my situation was different, but didn’t know HOW different it was until later in life (early 30s) because all I ever knew was education in our house. It was the norm. My parents never directly stated that we had to do good in school and go to college. It was understood, though.

I remember once I asked my Mom and Dad for money if I made X number of A’s. I was told, “I am not going to reward you for doing what you should be doing as a child living in this house”. Nuff said. Again, education was understood.

I am now married to an educator. His parents were also educators (oh, that was SO not intentional). We are both public school products and believe in the public school system. Yeah, here we go, again! LOL.

So, education for our house is a given, not an option.