[CrimsonTide4]

Okay I finally finished reading the article. I can definitely relate to a multitude of these vignettes. While others in my family before me went to college, when I went to college, everyone made a HUGE DEAL of it. They make an even bigger deal of me being a teacher. Some of my cousins are still living at home and will never see past Cleveland, clubbing, kids, baby's mamas/daddies, etc. When ever I come home, I try to "blend in" (not act ignant and do the things they do) by being Carla, part of the family but more often than not I feel like I am on the outside looking in. The cousins that are my age have a different mentality than I do on a lot of things. I used to think we were raised the same way but I can see now that we were not. I kept my head in a book and while I at times was the class clown, it was more in the vein of a fear of being too visible in terms of my knowledge as well as fear of envy and selling out. When you go to an all Black high school, stuff is a little rough even being in college prep classes.

While in college, I called my former best friend just to check on her and her sister. That was 96 -- she had one son and her twin had 4 kids. Now in 2002, she has 2 and twin has 6 kids. HELL NAW Get this she told me I sounded white on the phone and her words hurt me so bad. I never would have thought that going to college and hanging would with my black counterparts, would ever make me "talk/sound white." So we got off the phone and I called random friends, boyfriend, mama/former stepdaddy and they all said I did talk white. I went off. I tried to duck and dodge it for a good little while. Then one day I accepted their label of my speech patterns. I recognized that there is a time and place for all manners of talking, code switching is what it is called. But when my own mama told me that I cried because it hurt me that the woman who raised me saw me as being white in some way. The woman who taught me how to speak correctly as best she could.

Anyway I see a lot of myself in the vignettes, as I am sure most of us do, I think. What I see that needs to happen is we need to begin with our children and our younger siblings, cousins, my students, students you mentor, etc. etc. etc. is that we need to show them that success is OUR RIGHT. It does not mean we have sold out to the man. Success means look dang it i have intelligence and ideas and goals and I want to see them come to fruition.

Last May my brother graduated from college and in that year I have wanted to stick my foot thigh deep in his ass for NOT USING his degree. It is a long story but finally he is starting to come out of his FEARS as a Black man with a college degree in a family filled with Black men who still live at home with their mothers or with girlfriend of the month.

I say all that to say our mission must become one that teaches the values of success, how to network and not feel like you are "selling out", and other essential lessons for the Black community. We are a people who has success all up in us, but that crab in the bucket mentality, self defeating attitude, etc. plagues us as well.

I am really sorry that I wrote my senior thesis today but this is a subject that hits home. I have a degree in psychology as well as English and I want to study this phenomenon more indepth.