I KEEP TELLING MYSELF SOMETHING LIKE THIS...AS TO MY CAPTAIN SAYING I HAD TO BE A SECRET BUT STILL WHEN YOU FACE SOMEONE YOU LOVE HOLDING A KNIFE IN FRONT OF YOU THREATENING YOU HARM YOU WONDER--- WHY DID THIS PERSON HAVE TO BE SO OUT OF CONTROL?WHY DID I HAVE TO WITNESS THIS? , a poem by ELK (all rights reserved) ================== So I post this to a wall I close this by saying that some of us cannot run away from what has happened to us that is wrong which is out of our control We have to live with the wrong of others daily and well no one is coming along to make things right for us either and I still have not received an apology for being a victim of someone elses wrong that is why it matters to just strive to do right by people from the start Some people, especially women and persons of color and those of us who are women of color do not get chances to get do overs and we do not get people who come along and try to make things right for us so much or give us real chances for real and positive growth So you go into things thinking it is one way then after you are hooked you are the victim of a bait n switch and if you do not go along with that then you might be lied on or vilified by someone you thought was for you because you refuse to go along with their wrong So I was so impressed when this younger sailor offered me a real relationship upfront and I asked if you were involved with anyone so I could decide if to go for it with you since you were saying you were free and available I took a leap of faith which sorta goes against the nature of a lawyer But you were so incredibly sweet and open with me that I threw caution to the wind and just decided to embrace things and let me be happy I really needed you when Dad was ill because you were there as I went thru Dads decline from dementia to Alzheimers then his dying The night that Dad died you were on the phone with me probably for 4 hours and I wish you had gotten off the boat and came to Indy because I really did not have time to grieve at all til I was with you I have to be strong for everyone as I am more or less tasked with being co leader of my family along with my Mom as I am her caregiver as well I appreciate you being there for me so much at a difficult time But when you are a tan black person from a family that participated in the takedown of segregation and the black farmer discrimination settlements---- well I come from a gene pool that just is not predispositioned to even someone you love saying you have to be a secret unless it is for a very good reason like something related to national security or something like that and not because you are a white guy with a courage/cowardice problem in terms of properly respecting and acknowledging and treating right your black girlfriend who you made moves to get and acquire all on your own independently I wanted us to talk thru this but you were just really angry and irrational when I spokeout not going along with me being a secret so I will never understand why you pulled out a knife and threatened to cut me because I always felt you loved me no matter what ---------------- Even a year later I am still sorta shocked there was no instant or immediate apology coming to me from my captain for the wrong that he did to me that really is inexcusable ====================== My position is one I learned from lay counselor Charles who works with Sister Annette and like her is blind---- he said even if you my captain want to go with someone white that you still should apologize to me because you did a lot of wrong to me and there is nothing at all wrong with a good person like myself desiring to be treated right and normal and not be a secret or participate in other good people being misled as well too I have worked with Charles and Sister Annette because both are blind so I felt they could understand what I have gone thru being black but Charles has a brother who like you my captain fell in love with a black woman and went off and married someone white then he woke up one day realizing he had made a huge life mistake trying to live up to an image he thought was expected of him rather than being his true self so he left the white woman he had married and went back to the black woman he loved and ran away from trying to live an image and chose to be happy over settling and the family learned to live with that Sister Annette seems to get a lot of sailors and white guys struggling with interracial relationship issues to work with And she said what happened is that me and you both were saying the same things independently then she figured out we were talking about each other She said that you had said that you met your soulmate who is a black woman lawyer who is 43 via an ad and that her Dad had just died and you also said you were a 6ft 3 sailor whose Dad was a boat captain She asked me your height and more about you and things that you had said and then she made the connection She also said we both said she seemed like a counselor but she is a lay counselor as her and Charles both have graduate degrees in counseling so they do know what they are doing even though they do it on a lay counseling basis Sister Annette does a lot of stuff thru her church but also she has worked with people who have been incarcerated and so on So I think she was honest with me so that I would stop blaming myself for your wrongs because you feel stuck as a victim and wonder did i do something to deserve what happened and you wonder why was I vilified for doing nothing wrong? =========== Well it is time to go to court for me and Mom But it is just really emotional as Monday approaches I wish I could be sitting by Lake Eustis this Monday but I will be there January though I am going to Vero Beach to see the ocean for a day before heading to Disney and Lake County as I have to work right up til Tuesday before Christmas But I should not be expected to be a secret where I am a really good person and I should never be lied on or vilified for sticking up for what was right I guess now you wonder why doing the right thing leaves one alone sometimes =========================== But I think about how things came out about Lance Armstrong and when all the doping stuff came out that I could understand why his first wife and Sheryl Crow left him because they did not want to be party to lies though they were sorta quiet about their actions and desire to be themselves in a good way and not participate in or quietly condone what they felt was questionable I think that is also what motivated my actions because while I respect people living how they choose I should not be baited thinking I am in one thing then learning it is something else, then basically told be a secret to keep me in your life now that I have you hooked and oh by the way I want you to be quiet as you and others are misled and you get the shit side of the deal and I got into things thinking I was it because that is what i was told at the start I tried to get you to change so you did right by all parties so when i saw that was not gonna happen I did the best I could my captain and I hope as this 1 year anniversary approaches that I will stop beating up on myself for doing the best I could being put in an impossible position while trying to live up to the values and principles I was raised on by my parents Maybe I was not perfect but I tried to stand for what was right even though it seems that doing that has left me more alone I behaved how I was raised to try to set things right and to keep my name clean so I hope going forward that you will not tell anymore lies on me or relating to me my captain If you want to get down to it that is why I took all the actions that I have I should not be expected to let you or anyone else lie on me or my name or tell big fibs or outright lies where it comes to me or characterize me in a way that is false or untrue and misrepresents me ================= And so it is and that is what I wanted to say I guess I never expected the fallout or the flipout that came with me being honest as to you my captain I guess I expected you to calmly be honest with all parties and be a standup guy and come clean honestly to all parties but I never saw a flipout or a fallout happening and I still cannot believe you pulled out a knife threatening to cut me then you did not immediately or instantly apologize like even you know you should have done You have had a lot of time to apologize But what I have had to do is like I have done pretty much all of my life and find courage and have faith to try to do what is right and to grow as much as I can thru pain that I really should not have faced but did face only because I am black And like Elle Woods in a movie fav of mine Legally Blonde after she was wrongly dumped by Werner who should have married her ---she went into his world to prove that she could fit in and had been wrongly dumped and learned that it was him who had been horribly unfair to her and that she could fit in anywhere on her own independent of him and disproved his reasons for treating her funny on the basis of not fitting into a certain sort of image I know thanks to Sister Annette that I am loved but the problem is my race and that you did not have courage for me and did not treat me normal because of my race and really not any other reason as your fear of being looked on funny by those white in your family/friend circle for having a woman of color as a significant other is what motivated your bizarre flipping out I guess it has hurt me a lot because I did nothing wrong but was treated so horribly and painfully wrong But I am determined to recover and to leave things right but what I have to start telling myself is that I could not have foreseen the fallout or the flipout of my captain but I cannot control everything but all I could control really was not going along with me being a secret And it is the knowledge that I did my best to standup for me being treated right and normal for being the really good person that I am that I need to focus on I have to remember that I did nothing wrong I also am not responsible for my captain having wrong thinking in terms of thinking wrongly that because of my race I had to be a secret even though we live in times where people of different races can date and even marry and have families and well I am a really good person The wrong thinking of my captain who was thinking like folks did 50 years ago is out of my control but I tried to change things privately and positively and I did speak up when I became concerned that my good name might be trashed for not doing anything wrong but trust the words of a man who I believed at the time was telling me the truth of his situation being free and available when we met and fell in love and I got offered a real relationship ------------------- I have to keep telling myself that I cannot control everything that happens to me But the part that I could control in terms of taking a stand for me as a good person being treated normal by my then boyfriend who was acting like I had to be a secret like it was 100 years ago is what I am proud of After all it was folks like my parents who took a stand against segregation while they were in college at NC A and T back in the early 1960s as that was the home of the sit in movement that successfully ended segregation I come from a gene pool that takes seriously that no one should have to be treated beneath their dignity by anyone because of their race I believe in all people being treated right and not someone like me being treated differently in a lesser way only because of how I was born It is not like I was hiding who I am so I have to learn that I am the victim of the internal shortcomings of someone who made a choice to not grow or evolve even when they knew they were wrong to be mistreating the woman they love only because of her race which she cannot control It is very hard to face that someone knew they were wrong and they did not take steps to apologize or to grow but instead I got lied on and vilified for doing nothing wrong So if folks like my parents can risk their lives to end the segregation they grew up with in the Jim Crow American South then there is nothing at all wrong with me in our times standing up for the notion that as a girlfriend even if I am a woman of color I deserve to be treated normal and not like I have to be a secret where I am a really good person and woman and things are happy As this 1st anniversary looms I hope that I can stop being sad about losing so much for doing the right thing and instead learn to accept that I am the victim of someone elses wrong or uneducated actions and their lack of courage to try to do right by me But what I can be is proud of myself because when I went into the police station and made a report I had no idea if they would even investigate What is good is that I have been able to be credible even in the face of being lied on wrongly so for that I am glad but in all honesty God I just wanted to keep being happy without having to face my captain acting funny because he refused to grow as a person and do right and instead chose to lie As a lawyer and a writer I am familiar with the human condition I do wonder if it is worth it to strive to be a good person if the real problem is that you come from a demographic that no one really wants to claim as their own so much even where they love you It is just I had no idea that was going on when I met my captain because he made all the moves and offered me a real relationship and he said nothing at all about that being limited due to my race being black which had to be apparent to him from the time he first saw my ad and responded because I am tan and I most definitely was not hiding that So I hope that I can truly stop blaming myself for doing nothing wrong because the reaction I had to face was surreal and shocking and out of my control and I need to stop blaming myself for doing nothing wrong and face I cannot control someone elses reaction to their wrong actions coming out and just focus more on the reality that I did as I should even though it feels like there is no real or good reward out here in life for doing right where you are in a demographic that no one really wants to own as theirs no matter how good you are ======================== God bless and St Jude your intercession is asked for and requested to bring a more positive conclusion to the events of 12-22-13 so that true closure can happen and healing and understanding can occur and things can be left with the apology that I should have received a very long time ago from you my captain I hope that I have at least honored my parents and the spirit which they raised us in to have courage to standup for what is right even where that is hard to do I know at times in my life when I faced challenges to do right and be strong in the ace of others wrong that I found courage to act because of my parents Dad went out and marched with his classmates who did sit in at the Murphys Diner to end segregation and they were successful Even though they faced discrimination, my MOms family still ran and operstaed their family farm and after Moms youngest brother left running the farm to go to college Grandma was able to have her brother run it then she leased it out I would not have my life if people had not taken a stand against people doing open and knowing wrong so I hope that my doing the right thing and standing up for what is right and against my being wrongly mistreated will eventually lead to things being better and more right But living with a good name and clear conscience is priceless as is the knowledge that you took action to live how you should But God I really am also sorta sick of having to be the victim of someone else doing wrong knowingly to me that they know is wrong and then they are not trying to on their own clean up their act and make things right for me and taking action to clean up what they did wrong to me they know is wrong so I am not hurt and things work out for me and are right for me because in all honesty I am just tired of having to standup and do right in the face of others wrong that is out of my control because they were not trying to do right by me from the start and instead did not consider my life or my feelings but were all about their own selfish interests nevermind I deserve to come out a winner in life for being a good person who does right too So I have done the best i could striving to do right But I want things to work out well and right for me too and not just be doing right and dealing with the out of control things of others who are doing wrong they have no business doing where they can just as easily choose to reform and do right by me too I can only control my reaction but in all honesty I should not have to react to the wrongs of someone who should have been doing right by me all along
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 09:56:33 +0000
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