Streaming Consciousness: I Am Not Your Negro Part 2

I grew up being fed stories of my people. In fiction, non-fictions, textbooks, documentaries, films and oral history; my parents equipped me with so much knowledge. Knowledge which formed the armor I needed in order to leave the complex home, in which I was understood...or at least misunderstood in the way all parents misunderstand their children; looking as they do through cataracts formed of fear and love; into a world which saw me as a person not at all.

Into a world where each encounter presented the risk of being dismissed or disrespected...displaced entirely, by some who spoke not to me at all, but to what they imagined to be my race. The education my parents gave me in dealing with the white world both wounded and equipped me to deal. To understand, that the ignorance and even the hate which I faced on a daily basis was not personal, but a historical blindspot; inherited by one generation after another. James Baldwin understood my heart.