Posted by
RecknHavic on Friday, March 21, 2008 10:16:17 AM
Barack Hussein Obama told us alittle bit about his grandmother. Here's alittle bit about mine. To list all the selfless acts of the woman I call Grandma would require too many posts, so instead, here's just one of many.
When I was nine years old my parents, who like many of their generation, felt the need to go "discover" themselves. In the midst of this "discovery", they deposited me in the care of my grandmother. I don't begrudge them this (oh, the poor choices I've made throughout my life). In fact, the two years I spent living w/ Grandma were some of the best of my life.
I was born and raised in Houston, Texas; and despite what they might say "up north", it was and is a fairly large, modern city. So when the sudden news came that my folks were off to Los Angeles (my father was bitten w/ the acting bug) and I was heading to a small, rural town to live with my grandmother, came as a bit of a shock. So there I was, the new kid (literally) in town.
Now Houston is a very diverse city, and race played a very small part in peoples thinking. So when I arrived at my new home, thoughts of racial inequalities just didn't exist in my mind. This town (which I still love btw) was made up of mostly solid, down to earth white people of German descent. But like many of us, they weren't perfect; as I would soon learn.
Entering 3rd grade (a product of HISD) I was a good student with above average grades. And in Houston, elementary kids were just elemenatry kids; that is, if you were in the third grade, you were in the third grade; all were equal. But not here. Each grade level was broken up into A, B and C classes. A classes were for the high achieving (and wealthier) students. B classes were for most of the other white kids. And C classes were for the underachieving and/or poor whites, all minorities (regardless of marks or intellegence) and appartently for out-a-towners as well. I didn't really think anything of it, I was nine, and the racial makeup of my class was no different than "back home".
Like most kids I liked activities. So joining Scouts seemed like the thing to do. And of course I wanted to be in a troop with my friends (who were naturally my classmates). We were like any other Scout troop; we did all the things Scouts do: learned about nature, earned badges, explored. We were the same but with two exceptions: all the other troops were made up of entirely white kids, and we had the only female Scout Master, my grandmother. I didn't really think anything of it, again, I was nine.
I'll never really know all that she went through to lead our troop. I can only imagine the whispers and looks she recieved. A white woman, living "outside" of town (we lived in the country), associating with non-whites. You see, there are things a nine year old doesn't know about. White's Only drinking fountains (not at school tho), who could eat at what restaurant, who could or couldn't have certain jobs.
I never asked her (then) why she led our troop; thought she just wanted to. You see, there wasn't a white man in that town willing to head a Scout troop with black kids in it. Not one. Instead the chore fell to my fifty-one year old grandmother. In a town of big men (with alot of cattle money), in a town loyal to God (mostly) and country, in a town of the times; only she had the courage to stand up and lead.
