Love Imagined by Sherry Quan Lee

Author:Sherry Quan Lee [Lee, Sherry Quan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Biography & Autobiography, Women, Cultural Heritage, Women's Studies, Black Studies (Global)
ISBN: 9781615992331
Google: rUlTBAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 22978467
Publisher: Loving Healing Press
Published: 2014-01-01T03:00:41+00:00

Sons

The day that my friend’s blonde three-year-old came home from nursery school and said, “I don’t understand, Roosevelt is Black and mean, but Michael is Black and nice,” that I realized I couldn’t continue the debilitating charade that allowed me to have an Ozzie and Harriet life.

At age three, Michael’s darker skin had already marked him as other. I remember reading him a story about the United Nations and he pointed to a Chinese woman and he said she looked like my sister, and I said you are Chinese too, and was surprised by his defiant response, “no I am not.” Later, when I told my son he is Black, he, again, defiantly said, “no I’m not.” But later he said it was okay, he loved me.

I wonder if it was wrong for me to read my sons the book Epaminondus by Sara Cone Bryant, over and over again, as it had been read to me as a child, until they had memorized one of their favorite stories, the first story they learned to read. Did my mother, did I, see ourselves as “mammy”; did my sons see themselves as ugly and stupid? Did the book harm us, influence us negatively? We loved the story. But I won’t pass it on to my grandchildren.

When anything Black became negatively associated with my younger son Michael, shame, I told Husband Number Two it was time to tell his parents the truth that I wasn’t Polynesian and their grandsons were not Polynesian. But like many discussions of race with white people who exclaim, “but I’m not racist” or “I didn’t have anything to do with slavery,” Husband Number Two’s response was “you know I’m not racist, except Indians, they are all drunks, but that’s not being racist, that’s just how it is. And, my parents love you, why tell them you are Black and not have them love you anymore?” Shame.

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