In my first post, I mentioned that I thought God was only interested in white girls. I want to unpack that statement.
I am a Black Puerto Rican woman and I love it…now. My mom is Puerto Rican from New York and Daddy was an African American from Kingstree, South Carolina. We moved to Kingstree when I was about 5 years old. Up until this point I didn’t know anything about race. I just knew that Daddy was an incredibly tall dark chocolate man and Mama was much shorter and lighter than he. Cool. Fast forward.
I was in first grade when we moved to the south and I went to a 99.7% black school. I was accustomed to seeing kids of all flavors (I thought we all were flavors like ice cream, seriously) and not this many kids that looked like my dad. Cool. Fast forward
Some of the kids began to tease me and they called me names I had never heard of. They questioned what race I was. I didn’t know how to answer that. Either way it hurt my feelings because the kids at my last school weren’t like this. I told my Grandmama and she had my parents explain to me what I was. This is the identity conversation. Cool.
Now I had already been molested by this age and felt rejected. I was further rejected by these new kids. This episode planted inadequacy in me. Inadequacy stuck with me for years. I still have to kick it’s behind every once and again. These kids “gave” me my identity before my parents could. Sadly, I believed them more than my parents. I thought “something is wrong with me”. This is not the first time I thought something was wrong with me. I rejected my skin color, my hair, my teeth, my voice, my body, my gender, ME. Fast forward.
In the fourth grade, my parents transferred me to a private school which happened to be 99.8% white. I thought this would be good because a nucleus of the black kids didn’t seem to like me. Was I wrong! I learned quickly what racism was. These kids didn’t like my skin color either nor my hair; shoot they flat-out didn’t like me. It was awful! The teacher let the kids call me the n word. I was failing in math because she refused to teach me the correct way to do division. I was adding instead of subtracting. Not once did she attempt to correct my errors, but she punished me in isolation. The kids called me stupid and she didn’t stop them. However I did have one friend, she was white and marginalized because of me. She liked being my friend and I was grateful for her. Cool. Fast forward.
At this point, I was molested a few more times. I felt more rejection and inadequacy. The desire to be white was stronger than ever. I had pondered and even prayed to be white in my naivety. I woke up to my dismay and I was still a little black puerto rican girl. I didn’t believe God was real at this point. My parents didn’t take me to church because they didn’t believe in organized religion. At Grandmama’s house it was mandatory. I would go to sunday school and didn’t understand a thing. I just remember hearing that it was wrong to fornicate and you would go to hell for that. I grabbed the dictionary and looked up that word. I fornicated and I’m going to hell for sure…So I thought. Keep in mind, I’m 9 years old. I was devastated because I knew hell was where the devil lived and the devil just didn’t seem like someone I wanted to know. Cool. Fast forward.
My esteem of white people was that they appeared to have all their needs and desires met. They could do anything they wanted. They were never slaves. They were free. They seemed perfect to me, especially the blonde hair, blue-eyed girls. After all, I was going to hell. Remember y’all, I was 9 years old thinking this.
Jesus. That name when I first heard it made me feel some kind of way, but couldn’t name it at that time. I thought to myself, “I wish he knew me like he knows white people.” Living in the south I only saw white Jesus with blue eyes and straight brunette hair plastered on church fans and on the walls of the church. All the Sunday school picture books showed white Jesus with only white kids. This made me say, “something is wrong with me, I’m not good enough for Jesus, I fornicated, and now I’m going to hell.” This wrecked me y’all. Remember I was 9 years old. Despite all of that, something in me was determined to learn about Jesus even if he didn’t want nothing to do with this dirty little black puerto rican girl. So I flipped around in the bible at Grandmama’s house and read about Jesus. I didn’t understand a lot, but some of it I did. Fast forward.
I found myself states away from home with a “bonus” family, I was 15. I went to a 60% white high school there in Louisiana. There was a group that would come on Thursdays and bring food. I couldn’t find a job so I didn’t have lunch money often to buy hot food. To my surprise the group would bring free Papa John’s pizza, but the leader of the group was white. At this point in my life, I developed a distrust and disdain for white people. I had a choice to make would I get this free hot meal and listen to this white man? or will I be hungry and not listen to this white man? I decided to eat and listen to this white man. He talked and it resonated with my spirit in hindsight. I kept coming back every week. Sometimes they didn’t have money to feed us and a lot of the kids would leave. I stayed and listened hungry. That white man was teaching bible class to high school students. I had no idea this was bible class! He delivered in such a way that it was cool and intriguing. This man spoke about a Jesus I never heard of. An all-inclusive Jesus, a I-don’t-care-what-you-been-through-let-me-love-you Jesus. For the first time in my life I felt like Jesus wanted to know me. Cool. Fast forward.
I had stopped being molested a some years prior to living in Louisiana and I was frequently suicidal for years. My bonus mom took us to church often. This time, it was a different experience. I felt like the preacher was talking directly to me. This transformed my life! The journey from here up until now has been extremely bumpy, but God has never left my side. Y’all…the devil had deceived me for so long about such a loving God!
I stand firm behind the following statement: IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU ARE, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU, WHAT YOU’VE WILLINGLY DONE TO YOURSELF, JESUS STILL WANTS YOU! THE TRUE LIVING GOD OF ALL CREATION WANTS…YOU:o)
Thanks for reading what’s in my heart. It’s my prayer that it helps somebody:o)
GirlPal 