Growing up in a Foster home is one thing but to be a female, especially a colorblind one. Then add the irony if bleeding a female if color. It's like asking for a kick me sign to be put on my back. In this day an age, it's hard being a female and colored- African- American- one when not even 60 years ago we were best and killed because of our skin. Now... Well, we are still beat not so much killed... That's known anyway.
I remember when I was 6 years old, I had been placed in another foster home. It looked nice. It was strictly for girls. My new foster mother, Mrs. Agnes, an old ( white) widow women who were about 60 years of age treated me differently. I didn't notice it until I was older. She would call me out constantly because of my skin. I was black- which I never knew. Literally, all six years old I wanted was to play Barbie with the other girls.
I remember picking up a doll, not knowing it was a white one and having it snatched from my hands in an instant. Mrs. Agnes yelled and raved how I couldn't play with them or the dolls. That I was undeserving of the doll. That I needed to play with the black girl toys. She called me stupid for taking a white doll when I should have picked a black doll because it was more appropriate. She threw the doll to the ground and dragged me near a mirror. She " showed" me that because I was color need to know that my skin was too dark and dirty to play with the dolls or the other girls.
I didn't understand. I thought we were all the same. I was a girl and so were they.
After being put in time out for my stupidity, and bed without any dinner. I decided to run myself a bath.
As I sat in the tub I cried. I cried and cries as I tried to scrub my " dirtiness" off. I scrubbed until my skin hurt. I scrubbed until I couldn't anymore.
Early in the dawn of the morning, I was dragged by my hair. Mrs. Agnes dragged me out of the tub by my hair and put me outside in the backyard. Naked.
She put me a six-year-old girl outside naked and cold in the backyard. She yelled about how I was wasting all good "white water". I know I was but I was just trying to be better- " cleaner".
So I sat in the backyard, naked and cold in the early morning.
All alone.
At six years old.
Crying over something I had no control over.
Something I didn't know.
Then it happened.
Lilith, the next for neighbor.
She was in her early 30's when I met her. She called out to me from the other side of the gate. She had been gardening. She, of course, ask me why I was outside crying.
So... I told her. Boy did she go ballistic!
She told me after her rant about " child endangerment", " crazy white ladies" and " the audacity of some people", to hold right on.
She threw her jacket off the gate and told me to bundle up.
I remember hearing yelling from inside the house.
It was Ms. Lilith.
She was here!
She was yelling at Mrs. Agnes. Calling her all types of names. Telling her she was going to jail and how she was " gonna beat her old ass."
It was quite funny. When Mrs. Lilith told me what she said when I got older.
When Ms. Lilith got to me she picked me up and huge me close. She covered my ears as Mrs. Agnes came from the house yelling hurtful racial slurs. Ms. Lilith kept mumbling to not listen and relax. And that she would take care of me.
After the police came and arrested Mrs. Agnes, they sent the other girls to another home.
I got to say with Ms. Lilith.
Ms. Lilith adopted me after a few days with the courts. She told me to call her MamaLilly.
I had a Mama.
I, Khalessia H. Jones, has a Mama.
Everything was perfect.
My Mama loved me. Very much.
I spent ten years with MamaLilly.
Mama taught me many things about my history. What it was like to be colored.
She bought many books. And movies.
She even found people in the neighborhood that fought for my people civil rights. And others that were related.
She taught me what it was like to be a young woman.
She taught me to never let my disability hinder me. That I am more than just a colorblind girl.
When it was time for her passing...
She told me to never hold back.
Open up.
To never give up.
She told me to find love.
Accept my flaws and my loves as well.
There is more than just color in this world.
And all I had to do was find what was that more... Funny enough it found me.
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