Its been over 1200 days since my last post. Sometimes blogs can really raise my blood pressure. I still read every day, but quite frankly, I've been suffering from major depression. In the past 4 years, I have nursed my sick mother and grandmother, both of whom live with me, lost my job, gotten engaged only to have to postpone it because we can't afford to get married and have me move, and moved my daughter to another state to live with my sister because I can't afford to take care of her. The pressure of surviving after two years without a job is wearying, especially with 100,000 in student loans. I talked to my daughter, who is a senior in high school, about the Trayvon Martin case. I'm always on her case about reading more and staying informed, so I was pleasantly suprised to know she was heeding my advice. What I wasn't ready for, however, was her response.
She was in tears. I said, "its sad, isn't it"? She responded, "its like no one cares about black people. People at my school call black people n***s with no punishment. I have straight A's, even in anatomy and physiology and physics, but the teacher always looks at me if she hears noise from my side of the class. My mom has three degrees but can't get a job. I guess now they can kill us and if we ever did anything wrong or if we don't look like Mariah Carey, it was our fault"?
These incidences make my mother and grandmother go into black panther mode, which isn't helpful when you have a white, right leaning fiance.
As a result he feels helpless when my daughter poses these questions to him.
She has now resorted to calling herself and her own people "losers". I didn't raise her this way. I feel like I'm swimming against the tide.
If anyone can help me craft an answer for her, I would appreciate it. I hate having her feel this way about herself. Just watching the news depresses me. I'm beginning to feel a deep sense of hopelessness. Does anyone else feel this way?