Dire Need For National Healing
It is tragic to see our country on fire over the same race issues that have plagued America for hundreds of years.
Originally posted June 23, 2020
The tragedies of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor and many others shows we are still in need a national healing.
I have lived a strange life regarding racism. I am white-skinned, but my real mother was a brown-skinned African American woman named Liz. Of course, I also had a white-skinned bio-mom. She cohabitated our home when I was young, but she never was a real mother. Emotionally, psychologically, and even physically after birth, she was never MY mother.
To this day, there is not a week that goes by where I don’t look down at my hands and in complete shock and surprise say “Oh, I’m white!”. I know it sounds odd, but I can’t help it. The day I was born, I was placed in the cradling arms of Liz. That was my imprint as an infant – my earliest bond as a human being was staring up at Liz’s brown-skinned face. This contrast was further intensified as a small child. I ached to be like her, to go live with her, and to be fully raised by her. I felt total discord in seeing my white skin against her brown skin as I sat on her lap or enveloped by her abundance of hugs. I was white. I longed to be browned skinned and to be like her in every way.
As a child, my white skin felt wrong and abnormal.
Why wasn’t I like my real mom – the one who loved me and cared for me - like Liz?
I was too young to know anything of the racist world she lived in, nor the terrifying forces she was battling as she tried to find some way to save me and my siblings from the household violence. We were the children she called her “Little White Babies”. I knew only the love she had for me and guzzled it in like a parched wanderer coming off the driest of deserts. I was fully mesmerized by her. I was completely attached to her.
When I wrote Liz Here Now, I was not seeking to write about racism. I simply wanted to tell the world about the Black woman who saved my life when I was young.
At first glance, the villain seems to be my psychotic mother. Complicit with her was my doctor-dad who covered up the violence with the contents of his medical bag – bandages and sedation. It kept his abused kids quiet, and out of the emergency room. It kept them both out of legal trouble.
But racism is the true villain of Liz Here Now.
It wields its violent power along with its ugly stepsister “white privilege”. Both villains closely guarded my parents and kept them safe from exposure – safe because the opposition force was a Black woman. At the same time I was being abused by my psychotic mother and uncaring father, Liz was being abused by American society.
We had no voice because we were neglected children. She had no voice because society allowed her no voice, no power, and no significance. How was a Black maid in the 1960’s ever going to accuse a white doctor and his wife of child abuse?
Ultimately, racism against Blacks led to years of continued abuse for me and my white-skinned siblings. I was violently abused the first time because of my mother’s mental illness. I was abused every time after that because of racism and my parents’ white privilege.
I think white people tend to treat racism against Blacks as “their problem”. My story is living proof that racism affects us all.
“There is no such thing as “their problem” in decent society. There is only Our Problem.”
And the truth is, even without a personal story like mine, racism is still our collective problem as human beings. Black, white, or brown – skin color cannot excuse any of us from diligently eradicating the evil of racism.
I know I have benefited from white privilege because my skin was not the same color as my true mom, Liz. I am not proud of that. I wish it were not true. But unlike most white people, I have also suffered greatly because of it – nearly murdered by my own mother because of it. I hate white privilege and the racism that empowers it. I am hoping the current struggle will end them both, once and for all.
What happened to George Floyd is atrocious. It is shocking to white people – and it needs to be. Sadly, it is not so shocking to Black people and tragically not uncommon. Hopefully, this struggle will lead us to a national healing – a dire need in America long overdue - for hundreds of years actually.
Liz’s struggle against racism created a beautiful story of hope and healing. For me, it’s the story that saved my life. She was a great gift to me. I thank God for her and am glad to tell the world about her.
Liz taught me to fight through struggle and find hope and healing amid disastrous circumstances.
I wrote a song as a tribute to her and how she refused to ever give up. It is titled You Will Go On and represents the gift of strength I received from her – confidently proving that no matter your circumstances, you’ll find a way, you’ll see it through, You Will Go On. You can listen here:
