THE POWER OF THE GROUP We all want to feel a sense of belonging. This isn’t a character flaw. It’s fundamental to the human experience. Our finest achievements are possible when people come together to work for a common cause. School spirit, the rightful pride we feel in our community, our heritage, our religion, and our families, all come from the value we place on belonging to a group.

Rosalind Wiseman

I have a confession to make: I am NOT an African American! At least if being an African American means you feel a direct connection to the group. Which I do not… entirely. I do have typical African American experiences outside the group, but inside the group, I often feel like an unwanted stranger. And so I am left between groups! Although I like it here, I often struggle.

How I came to be in this predicament was through a very deliberate decision on the part of my parents. As the story is told, they decided that what they wanted for baby me was a better life with more opportunity. They decided that in order to achieve this goal, they would have to expose me to things other blacks aren’t normally exposed to and the knew that meant that I would not grow up around other black children. I would be missing a whole side of an experience, the lack of which would open up opportunities other girls who look like me aren’t likely to have.

I don’t have many good memories of black people that were not my family. I was teased viciously as a child by black children. It was called capping and it was fun for them. But it broke me. Also, it was the cause of my natural aversion to other blacks. I could never hide the fact that I was vastly different from them. I carry myself differently, I speak differently, I dress differently, I make different choices and it was these differences that they singled out. Their teasing let me know that I would never belong. I think that it was those negative experiences that were the cause of my low self-esteem.

In a way, I am grateful to those bullies because I am who I am today, in part, because of them! I went deep and dark because I let them get to me. Then I dragged myself back out and I grew stronger!

As above…

I could end the post there, but I have a couple more points to make.

Everyone knows that as far as racial hierarchy, African Americans are the lowest of the low. Mounds and mounds of cards are stacked against us. This is not something unique to America, all over the world people of color are oppressed, blacks in particular. Other races clambor to raise themselves above us. All over the world people of color have come together to fight oppression and attempt to lift themselves up to grasp for equality. As a cohesive group we have so much potential and power. And our oppressors know that. The struggle is real.

Within our group, we’ve created our own hierarchy. Anything that brings you closer to white culture lifts you up. Historically blacks who could pass for white were given the same opportunities as whites as long as the sacrificed their roots. So, within our group, the more white characteristics you have the higher up the internal hierarchy you are and the more you are despised by the others. You’d think that after all this time we as a group would have figured out not to let our differences separate us. Divided we fall. We would have figured out how to use our differences as strengths and rise up! Imagine what we could show the world if, in spite of all our differences within this bitter and broken group, we still managed to pull together and become enlightened beings. I mean if WE could do it, we could be the leaders we naturally are and bring that gift to the entire world and save all our souls! It would literally make everthing our pwople have gone through worth it!

But first, we need to get out from under the delusion that differences are weaknesses. Our differences are our strengths. Sameness brings about cohesion, it binds us together in a shared experience but difference– diversirty must be celebrted! I don’t want to be within the group, but I don’t want to be without it either.

…so below.

What set this off for me was an online interaction with a fellow African American. Without meaning to, she reopened wounds I thought had been healed long ago. If I’m honest, these wounds were never completely healed, I just learned not to put myself in the position to have to face them. But I struggle internally with the idea that I belong to a group that doesn’t accept me. I am scared of other black people not because I fear for my life or my spot on the Ladder of Power, but because I fear their rejection. A rejection I know is always forthcoming.

And so the battle that is waged within my community, and on a grander scale within the whole world, is also reflected inside of me. I suspect this same battle is reflected within every single human on the planet! Who among you can say that I am not correct?

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Until next time…