Indian in my blood?

What is the stigma that some black have with just being themselves? Many of us have European, Latin American, and even American Natives (they were here first) bloodlines, but few of us choose to wholly claim the one predominate ethnicity: African.

I went to a job fair today and one of the representatives made a comment about my hair and my features. He made a ridiculous gesture (similar to the wave) and said that I had "waves" going on. I looked at him for a moment, confused. Then he pointed to my hair (which is naturally curly and was pulled back into a bun). "The waves in your hair!" Oh. Then he said "You must have Indian in your blood." I looked at him and my mouth dropped. "What does that mean? Why do people say that?" He then attempted to explain that it was an old cliche that African Americans have about their bloodline. I told him that I understood. But I didn't... I don't.

I don't understand why my people don't want to claim their African roots. Why must we feed into the eurocentric view of who we are culturally, ethnically? I love being me. I love the fact that I don't look like anyone in my family. I love the fact that people of African descent think I am of the same descent by just looking at me (it kind of gives me a connection to Africa without having traced my roots to Africa). One lady came up to me and just started talking to me in an Ethiopian dialect. I looked at her for a minute and then told her that I am black. A look of embarassment came over her face and she apologized. We struck up a conversation and she informed me that she was Ethiopian. A few weeks later it happened again, this time a man asked me. He too, assumed that I was Ethiopian... maybe there is a pattern devoloping here... I love my curly hair, my full lips, and skin color. I love my dark eyes. I love my nose (though my little brother tells me that I have a white girl's nose because it is not flat as most people in my family, but it is pointed with a slight hump in it). Though I have traits that somewhat display my unknown ancestry. But when people ask me, I just tell that I am black. I am me, nothing more, nothing less! I embrace my blackness, and I also embrace the fact that there are other nationalities floating around in my bloodstream, but I do not put much emphasis on that small part of me. A lot of blacks do. I can't recount how many conversations I have had in which people voluntarily tell me that they are part Indian. How do you know that? What percentage are you? Where are the photos of your ancestors? Which tribe does your family belong to? I want to scream! Why do such things define us? Why can't we just revel in our blackness? Yes, I am something else, but my blackness is what the world sees. The world looks at my skin color first. "She's black" is the first thing the world says. After the world has categorized me, then it begins to take in my features. Then it says, "wait, her features bely other races." But I am still black, when they have finished categorizing me. I live in my blackness and I accept it, but I do not let it solely define who I am. There is a difference between accepting and living in your blackness and allowing yourself to be defined and confined your blackness.

I took me a long time to get to the point of accepting my blackness and living in it though. Maybe that's the problem. That many blacks here in the South hold on to the eurocentric ideals that have been imposed upon us for centuries and they are confined to those definitions. We have a need to be defined and categorized, to fit in nice, neat little boxes that a predominately controlled white society has created. I began to rebel against imposed definitions in high school. By the time I graduated college, I had masted the fine art of going against the current, of swimming upstream. I think that many of my people need to realize that there is a difference between being defined and categorized as black, and accepting and reveling in their blackness. To revel and accept it is to simply say "Yes, I am black. But I am also strong, educated, beautiful (and enter whatever other personal characteristics you may have). I am uplifted in my blackness! I refuse to forced into a eurocentric mold without the possibility to grow and expand. My growth and development will not be stunted!" To be defined and categorized by it is to say "I am black, and I fit neatly into one of many prepressed stereotypical molds. I want to fit into the overabundance of eurocentric stereotypes mixed with the somewhat gritty, sex laden "black" stereotypes that perpetuates our culture. I aspire only to what has been set out in those molds. I will have little chance to grow and develop, and I am okay with that!" (I am beginning to ramble a little here which means that I am really tired. I apologize if I am not making much sense.) I understand that there are factors that keep many of us from throwing off the shackles of the definitions and confinements that are forced upon us such as poverty, lack of good, solid role models, inability to access information and/or technology that will help us become more comfortable in our own skin. As I said, it is an uphill battle, but it can and should be fought. But I digress. Blackness is something that should be embraced wholeheartedly. There is something wholly wonderful and satisfying in being black. Yes, we have many stereotypes to shatter, racism to deal with, glass ceilings in the work place, sexism if you are a black woman such as me, but all of these things stregthen our character. Accepting and enjoying blackness is fulfillment and acceptance of yourself. No, I don't have Indian in my blood! I am me. I am black, pure and simple!

I also think that having a terminal illness has helped me to revel in my ethnicity. Most of the people who are on dialysis with me are black. I respect most of them, but many of them think I am a little weird because I do not fit into any of the predisposed categories that they have accepted. I listen to all types of music, I don't like watching BET (I liked it when it had a more political influence on the black community), I am a news junkie, I love latin music and latin dance, I love art and museums, I love poetry, I love long walks by the river and listening to the rain, I date outside of my race, I love African and Latin American history, I love travelling, I love just being, I love learning and I love teaching.... I love things that are atypical for many of the black people at my center. And the funny thing is that they are not atypical things for many other black people that I know. The crazy guy who won't take no for an answer once told me that I was the only person he knew who talked about things other than hip-hop and celebrities (I seriously think that was a lie... and it was after he told me that he loved me!) Maybe blackness for a lot of people at my center is completely different than it is for me. Maybe their blackness is the hip-hop, the gossip, and all other things that revolve around black culture. Maybe I am a little different, a little odd. Maybe that is what my blackness! I don't know. But I am sleepy now and I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning! (Ahhh!!!)

Life...

People have a way of making us feel insignificant and helpless. Why do people automatically decide that you are all of a sudden helpless when you have a terminal illness. If I do not see myself as helpless and in need, then why should you. That only makes me beleive that you are looking for someone to help, that you need some sort of symbiotic relationship to make yourself feel better in some way. The assumption that I am ill and must be treated as such only makes an ass of you (as one of my teacher's once put it). When a guy that I had been involved with found out that I have kidney failure and had subsequently began dialysis, he began to treat me as if I were completely helpless. He began treating me as if I were as fragile as a Faberge egg or other ceramic (though not nearly as costly). I have no idea why he decided that I was no longer capable of doing many of the things that I had done before I had been diagnosed with kidney failure. Whenever he spoke to me, it was as if I were helpless, as if I always needed something and he would be one of the many who would attempt to provide that something.

Since I have been sick, most of the men that I have encountered either get afraid of the prospect of getting know a woman with kidney failure, or they feighn knowledge of the illness and spout off some inane facts about the disease and dialysis. One man even told me that he knows and understands the plight of dialysis patients because his mom and two siblings have been on dialysis for more than 15 years. And yes, he had a knowledge that rivals that of many patients, but he failed to understand that each person reacts and copes with dialysis differenly. He assumed that my treatments and my abilities to cope would be similar to, if not exactly like, his mother and siblings. I also think that he thought he was telling me what I wanted to hear so that he would have a better chance of sleeping with me(talk about men with one track minds). So I was immediately turned off... well, that and he was not attractive at all! I know that's somewhat vain, but he was not intriguing me intellectually and he was not charismatic, so I had to go to characteristic number three.

People say that I am mean when it comes to men. And I admit that I am in many respects. But I live in a city and come from a neighborhood where you would be hard pressed to find a man who respects women. But my dad, grandad, and great granddad spoiled me rotten, and so I expect the men that I become involved with to be a certain caliber. He doesn't have to be as educated as I am, but he must be intellectual. He has to know how to communicate effectively, and he has to know how to deal with my fluctuations in mood/attitude. And maybe all of this is asking too much, but I figure that life is short and I should, at least, attain all of the things (love, achievements, friendships, etc) that I want in this life. (I think I've been watching a little too much Girlfriends and Sex in the City... when is someone going to come out with a show that deals with the real lives of everyday, working class women who can't afford Prada, Gucci, and Loius Vuitton? I'll be the first to watch that one!)

Ah... I wonder what lessons are in store for me in the relationship department... I must admit that I am a bit afraid of some of those lessons. I mean this past year has been hell on me in the relationship department, which I won't go into! Hopefully it'll get better soon...

I don't understand some people!

I am trying to find a job, which, as we all knew, is not going well at all! But that's neither here nor there. I have been out of the job market for a good minute, so the hardships are to be expected.

Anyway, why do people that I don't want to have anything to do with believe that, for some insane reason, that I really want to be their friend? Andrew, the annoying dialysis technician, really thinks that I want to be "friends" with him... why? I rarely say two words to him and he has the nerve to tell me that I hurt his feelings because I refused to give him my phone number and let him call me! He is married with 6 kids! Why would I want to talk to him? What could we possibly talk about? He got my phone number by pretending that he wanted to use my camera phone and then called his own phone from mine. That pissed me off and I told him not to call me. He did it anyway. I talked to him once and told him not to call me anymore. You'd think the dumbass would understand! But no, he tried to do the same thing the other day, and had the nerve to get pissed off at me when I told him to use the center's phone or one of his coworkers! When I completed dialysis he told me that he was really hurt that I didn't want to "be his friend." I told him to go tell his wife. He just looked at me. I have been really patient up until this point, but I swear he if says anything else to me, I am going to go South Memphis on his ass. I have never had to deal with someone like this in my life! Normally when I don't want to befriend someone, they call me a bitch and get over it! We all move on, and if at some point down the road things have changed, then we'll naturally ease into a friendship. Friendships should not and cannot be forced! But people just do not understand that concept!

There is also female technician at the center who tries to get my advice on losing weight! Do I look like I have ever had any experience losing weight?! I don't know, hell, I don't care, stop talking to me! I have no idea why people feel a need to attach themselves to me! If I wanted to know you, I would have let you know a long time ago! If you give me your phone number and I don't call you, that should let you know something. You'd think people would at least get that. And people wonder why I have a select few friends. I get tired of dealing with people. People at dialysis tell me their problems as if we have known one another for three or four years... I don't want to hear that! I have my own problems!

I feel that some of the technicians honestly believe that I need a friend because of everything that I am going through. Yes, being on dialysis is a completely life changing event. Yes, at times I do have a hard time dealing with it. Yes, I get angry, frustrated, sad and go through an entire range of other emotions. No, that does not mean that I want to be your friend and sit around the campfire and tell you my sob story. I don't understand why they make such a big deal out of it! Just because my arm looks like a junkie's from all of the needle sticks for treatments, I have a strict diet, my weight fluctuates, and I get sick easily doesn't mean that I am not coping in my own way. I have all of the people that I want around me. My family and closest friends have been with me from the beginning. So, have some of the nurses and technicians. But I go to my center for one reason, to get my treatments and that's it. I don't want to sit around and listen to whatever problems a tech has. I want to go, have the life, literally, drained out of me over a three hour period and I want to go home. It would be alright if all of the techs were like the nurses and were cordial. I like asking people about their mornings, and getting a somewhat personal, yet simple answer. Then that person commences to do his/her job. I don't want to know about anything other than what I just asked that person. If I wanted to know about someone's familial or personal lives, then I would flat out ask. Please don't volunteer information just because I have to sit in a 50 degree room with you for three hours! I have my own personal life to figure out. I have to study for the GRE. I have to decide which graduate school I want to go to, which PhD program I have the best chance of getting into. I have to worry about when I will be able to get a kidney transplant and whether or not the treatments for my liver will go well! I don't want to be forced to hear about a series of problems that has nothing to do with me! I am not your friend, I am only your patient, and our relationship should be handled as such! But, I must also add that I am actually tutoring one technician and another technician's son, and I have created professional (and somewhat personal) relationships with them. Then again, those relationships are based on money also! I do, however, like them, and I enjoy talking to them about anecdotal stories that occurred to us on days that we had sessions. The conversations rarely revolve around our personal lives, only the part of our lives that intersect. And I like that. I am an extremely private person (on the verge of being anti-social) and I don't like being forced into certain conversations. I really dislike being forced to deal with stupid people. I have a very low tolerance for stupidity and inane conversations.

Maybe all of this is just a lesson telling me that I have a lot more to learn about dealing with people. I am a volunteer with CASA here, and I have to deal with a wide variety of personalities, so maybe all of this is just to let me know that I do not have a propensity for dealing with certain characteristics... I don't really know at this point. But I am waiting to see what this lesson is!

First Posting

I have no idea what this is supposed to do for me, but I thought I would at lease try it out. This past week has been fairly weird... then again, most weeks are a little strange when you're a dialysis patient. In the past few months I have watched five people die due to kidney failure and other, respective, illnesses. It's scary because they were all mentors to me in some way or another. Ms. Booker was always feisty and full of life. Every other day she would tell me never to let dialysis defeat me. But I watched it defeat her. She went from being this woman who didn't take any shit from anybody, to a mute. It hurt my heart to watch her being rolled in on a gurney. The ambulance techs just treated her like some ragdoll. She couldn't say anything because she had had a stroke and could no longer speak. One day she just gave up. It was the same for the others. Mr. White had a stroke while he was on the dialysis machine. He sat a few chairs away from me. I watched him being rolled away on a gurney barely conscious. He died a few weeks later. I never imagined that I would be experiencing anything like this in my life.

When I first started dialysis, I was one of the youngest patients at my center. One of the hardest things to deal with was not seeing people who were in my age group going through dialysis. I felt alone, like I didn't belong there because I had barely had the chance to begin living my life. Everyone I saw was elderly. They had done many things with their lives, they had had their children, had married the loves of their lives. And here I was, barely out of college, still attempting to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. In a matter of, literally, a month, my life had changed considerably. I was put on a very restrictive diet, I had no income, no insurance, and had a four inch-tube protruding from the right side of my chest. Every day I would wake up and think that I had merely lost my grip on reality and at any moment I would regain it and move on with my life. It's been almost a year, I still haven't regained my grip, but I have also realized that maybe I didn't have such a good grip on my life anyway. So, I decided that I would figure out some other way to cope with having kidney (and now liver) failure and a new path in life. Hopefully, this will help!