I'm just choked up, because I kind of know these similar times and places, and how solitary and isolating these lives are - even for those who weren't subject to abuse in their homes.
Yeah, it was something else, wasn't it? I'm going to write next about my school friend Estrellita (Star) who contacted me years later via social media - she just recently died of cancer and it was so sad. Star was an extremely thin, delicate young girl and woman who was teased due to her being so thin and being ... check it out ... Mexican-American (i.e. Chicana). Her father was a professor at the University of Redlands but trashy white kids treated her s**ty all the same.
You remember maybe, that in my 20's, my mother was a clinical psychologist at Loma Linda Hospital. Between that, and living as a Jr High kid in San Diego through the second half of the 1970's, I really get the setting and the "culture".
I was dropped there from a childhood on the Monterey Peninsula. It was like being dropped into minimum security prison from a life in a resort. One most striking feature was discovering that bitter racism wasn't a theoretical personal character flaw in a few specific individuals. It became a dense, restrictive and wholly pervasive medium in which everyone seemed to be obliviously embedded, defining and deforming their possible navigation - psychologically, socially and physically.
You're doing a very brave thing. I'm honored to be part of it.
Even as a kid, I somehow intuited adults could be capricious and unpredictably mean, but I was astonished at how mean kids could be. I was insulated as a kid, living out in the woods, with most of my friends on PBS.
Yeah - I was always the kid who stood up for other kids. I didn't even know what I was doing. I have a friend who passed away last year, Star Alonzo. Her name was Estrellita in school and I will probably write about her next. Her father was a professor at the University of Redlands but racism being what it was back in the day - she got harassed/teased insanely. My lifelong bestfriend since 7th grade, Cathy, is presently texting me her grandbaby's pictures ... Cathy is a project as we have been thru so MUCH together. It's maybe what I am supposed to do. My friends. Girlfriends. Cousins. We have our stories, someone needs to tell them.
When I was eight, my parents moved from Toronto to Fort Worth, Texas. I never overcame the culture shock. They bought a house in the southern suburbs, and man, did I learn about racism. They didn't seem to mind Hispanics so much, as long as they weren't too...hm, aspirational, I guess. But blacks made them apoplectic.
Poverty and abuse were so blatant they were invisible, just the water we fish swam in. I knew it was wrong, but everyone was so quick to resort to violence, and so hair triggered, I just stayed quiet. I wish I'd defended two black kids that lasted a few days in my high school, but I didn't at the time as I feared what would happen to me, my family, my dog. People knew where I lived, and as a kid I'd been chased for miles.
Yes, it was TERRIBLE. Unspeakable, Dex. It’s a big change few talk about. Because middle class kids, I think, were not encouraged to write truthfully, and rich kids who were ALWAYS encouraged … they either did not know or did not care. Poor kids - “sponsored” for poverty & race porn (that’s what I call it, same for sexual abuse porn - that’s why I am writing carefully).
I'm just choked up, because I kind of know these similar times and places, and how solitary and isolating these lives are - even for those who weren't subject to abuse in their homes.
Yeah, it was something else, wasn't it? I'm going to write next about my school friend Estrellita (Star) who contacted me years later via social media - she just recently died of cancer and it was so sad. Star was an extremely thin, delicate young girl and woman who was teased due to her being so thin and being ... check it out ... Mexican-American (i.e. Chicana). Her father was a professor at the University of Redlands but trashy white kids treated her s**ty all the same.
You remember maybe, that in my 20's, my mother was a clinical psychologist at Loma Linda Hospital. Between that, and living as a Jr High kid in San Diego through the second half of the 1970's, I really get the setting and the "culture".
I was dropped there from a childhood on the Monterey Peninsula. It was like being dropped into minimum security prison from a life in a resort. One most striking feature was discovering that bitter racism wasn't a theoretical personal character flaw in a few specific individuals. It became a dense, restrictive and wholly pervasive medium in which everyone seemed to be obliviously embedded, defining and deforming their possible navigation - psychologically, socially and physically.
Oh my god!! Yes, I do - and this is also contained in the reminiscence I just finished. What a difference between Monterey and there. Absolutely true.
You're doing a very brave thing. I'm honored to be part of it.
Even as a kid, I somehow intuited adults could be capricious and unpredictably mean, but I was astonished at how mean kids could be. I was insulated as a kid, living out in the woods, with most of my friends on PBS.
And Dick Gregory! Nice. A true champion. RIP.
Yeah - I was always the kid who stood up for other kids. I didn't even know what I was doing. I have a friend who passed away last year, Star Alonzo. Her name was Estrellita in school and I will probably write about her next. Her father was a professor at the University of Redlands but racism being what it was back in the day - she got harassed/teased insanely. My lifelong bestfriend since 7th grade, Cathy, is presently texting me her grandbaby's pictures ... Cathy is a project as we have been thru so MUCH together. It's maybe what I am supposed to do. My friends. Girlfriends. Cousins. We have our stories, someone needs to tell them.
When I was eight, my parents moved from Toronto to Fort Worth, Texas. I never overcame the culture shock. They bought a house in the southern suburbs, and man, did I learn about racism. They didn't seem to mind Hispanics so much, as long as they weren't too...hm, aspirational, I guess. But blacks made them apoplectic.
Poverty and abuse were so blatant they were invisible, just the water we fish swam in. I knew it was wrong, but everyone was so quick to resort to violence, and so hair triggered, I just stayed quiet. I wish I'd defended two black kids that lasted a few days in my high school, but I didn't at the time as I feared what would happen to me, my family, my dog. People knew where I lived, and as a kid I'd been chased for miles.
Yes, it was TERRIBLE. Unspeakable, Dex. It’s a big change few talk about. Because middle class kids, I think, were not encouraged to write truthfully, and rich kids who were ALWAYS encouraged … they either did not know or did not care. Poor kids - “sponsored” for poverty & race porn (that’s what I call it, same for sexual abuse porn - that’s why I am writing carefully).