Respecting Black History Month

By Tina Ray
Opinion Editor

All my life, I have lived as a black woman.

I can’t say that I’ve never wanted to live any other way because I grew up in the 70s, when the image of black people on television as something other than a sideshow or a maid or criminal did not exist.

During those dark years, I was lost and wanted to be white if only to know the inescapable privileges that so easily entitled them to different lives. But, I think that even at the base of my identity crisis, I simply wanted other races to respect my people for who we are and for the depth of our worldly contributions.

The funny thing about respect, though, is that one has to earn it. I didn’t learn to garner respect from others until I first learned to direct it inward towards myself. I learned to be comfortable with my personality traits. I learned to peace with my two-toned skin and big lips and hair that doesn’t lie down if it isn’t permed.

Most of all, I learned that my grandmother was a hard-working woman who reared 15 children and never spent a night in jail for prostitution because she never lay down to put food in their mouths. I learned that my mother worked a job which did not require a college degree, but that didn’t make her menial or less important than someone educated in the finest halls of academia. She was loyal to her responsibilities as a working, tax-paying, contributor to society.

I didn’t learn cultural respect in the history books that taught me Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Nobel Peace Prize winning civil rights leader or that Harriet Tubman ushered slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. I didn’t learn cultural respect in the fascination that Garrett Morgan invented the gas mask and the automated traffic signal. I learned respect for my culture by listening to my late grandfather sing “He Touched Me” on Communion Sunday at church.

Today, I still learn. I learn in watching my cousin study for her doctorate degree in pharmacy at Chapel Hill. I learn from my aunt who tutors my five-year-old son after school each weekday. I learn even by the dignified way that she walks with upright posture.

My culture is what it is. It is, as I have realized, more than what the media says that it is or isn’t. It’s more than the typical story of Frederick Douglass or Booker T. Washington or Rosa Parks. It’s everyday people living clean lives making the world better for the generation of children behind them. My culture is the flower that I lay at the grave of my grandmother because I loved her: it’s beautiful.