"A chain-smoking black lady."

A few days after my now ex-wife and I signed the lease on a new apartment, she called me at work to tell me that she went to the manager's office, cancelled the lease, and surrendered the deposit without asking me. 

Her reason? 

She visited the building and saw that the current tenant was "a chain-smoking black lady." 

The smoking part wasn't the problem. Over the next few weeks, she painted the neighborhood as an urban hell-hole full of drugs and rapists. She felt she was saving me from some violent catastrophe. 

I slept on a friend's couch until I had enough money to get my own place. When I left her, people were quick to blame me and slow to ask what happened. Nobody wanted to hear that she would rather be homeless than live with black neighbors. 

I am haunted by the knowledge that fear of strangers can motivate someone to hit the self-destruct switch on their own life or destroy lives around them. Unspoken fear is the true face of racism.

"The Jungle's back!"

I'm of East Indian/West Indian heritage, and growing up in Canada, I had more body hair than other girls in my class. I was often teased about it and was called hairy, gorilla, nasty and more. I was miserable because I was in middle school and my mother wouldn't let me shave. 

In seventh grade, my family went away for Christmas and my parents decided to extend our vacation by a week. The day I returned to school, I was the first one in homeroom, and was surprised that the few classmates who came in after welcomed me back. One guy came in, smiled brightly and said "Good to have you back!" Seriously, I started doubting my sanity and wondering if I had misjudged everyone all along. 

Then I heard the same kid out in the hallway by the lockers say, "Hey everyone! Guess what? The Jungle's back!" Everyone laughed like crazy as usual. 

I'm now 37 and have married and had kids. But the scars have lasted a lifetime and I still feel ugly and hairy and disgusted with myself, even though I shave and wax. I feel uncomfortable and gross inside my own body. I am withering inside. I know I should just get over it already, but I can't.

The first time I felt like I wasn't good enough.

When I was five years old, I was sitting in my kindergarten classroom with a group of friends during coloring time. I remember we were discussing things like boyfriends, girlfriends and marriage - you know, the usual. 

I must have made a comment in regards to myself growing up and getting married, since I assumed everyone got married when they reached a certain age. The little boy sitting next to me stopped dead in his tracks, looked me in the eyes and said, “But nobody will ever want to marry you because...you’re black.”

I went home that night and must have been pretty upset because the next day my mom met with my teacher and the parent of the little boy who had made the comment. 

He was made to apologize and of course life carried on. And even though now, 20 years later, I know people have said many things a thousand times more hurtful to me, that particular moment has always stuck with me.
 

"...until I fit in."

I've always admired my mom. She married my dad, moved to the US from Mexico, and got her citizenship via naturalization. She worked hard to learn English, and worked even harder to provide for four us after a bitter divorce.

At one point she was working three jobs, and she still always showed us the positive even though we were really poor at the time. She often faced a lot of racism in our small town because of her (and our) heritage. 

One day, I asked her how she does it. A Hispanic woman in a small, Midwestern community making ends meet with a smile on her face, not letting the haters bring her down. She looked at me, smiled and said, "If I'm in a new place, I squish and squeeze until I fit in." 

That's always stuck with me. She made a place for herself and worked hard for it. I'm lucky if I'll ever grow to be half the woman she is.

"Why is Pooh black?"

Junior year of high school, we put on Winnie the Pooh as our spring play, and we performed the show at all of the local elementary schools. 

Our cast was mostly black, as is the population of our town. When we brought the play to schools that were also mostly black, the children adored us. We were big, fuzzy rock stars! 

However, when we brought it to the suburban and private elementary schools, the little kids were fearful of us. They would ask their teacher, "Why is Pooh black?"

My cast-mates were uncomfortable. The kids didn't laugh very much. Our director blamed it on low cast energy, but we knew him too well to know that he was just trying to ignore the obvious. Those kids didn't see themselves represented for probably the first time in their lives, and they didn't know how to deal with it. I learned a lot about racism and media representation that day.

Now whenever I hear someone complaining about a fictional character being non-white, I always think back to those little suburban kids, confused at their lack of representation for the first time and not knowing how to handle it. Except the people I'm referring to are grown adults with access to plenty of white characters to relate to.