My Second Mother

My upbringing was in no way,shape,or form conventional. Born to white middle-class aprents who were forced to work in order to free themselves from debt, I was raised by a woman named Judith Mohammed until I reached the age of ten. My parents were still involved, still saw me on weekly occasions, but the woman who deserves most of the credit is Judith, who I call GiGi. GiGi is from Trinidad and Tobago and entered into a conservative white household. Although my father will never admit it, he owes his family’s success to GiGi. Without her there isn’t a family. I have her to thank as well, without her, and one other woman in my life, I would have likely adopted my father’s (what he calls a  ”traditionally southern”) view of things. This is the woman who has been there to witness my first steps, my first words, and my first day of school. She is my mother and I love her. What does that make me?

Where Worlds Meet

Regina woke from her nap to a tapping sound. Rat-Tat-Tat…. Rat-Tat-Tat. She rubbed the sleep from her bleery eyes and headed toward her window. Outside was the her counterpoint, her relief. Michael was waiting for her with what looked like a backpack.

“What?” she said with what she hoped sounded like contempt.

“Look I’m sorry about today, the guys, the just don’t understand. They think its funny, like its a joke or something.”

“Michael you shrugged me off at lunch and then ditched me after school! Why would I go anywhere with you?”

“Regina I’m sorry, I’m trying to make up for it, I’m trying tomake it work.”

She paused for a moment. He seems sincere, I want to go with him, I miss him. I’ll go “Whats that for?” Regina asked.

“Stop being so nosy and get out here already, we have to hurry.”

“You’re ridiculous!” Regina said laughingly and climbed out the window.

The two of them climbed into the beat up old 1990 Landcruiser that Michael had gotten for his 16th birthday and pulled away from the house. They drove and drove until they reached the end. The place where they always went to get away. To everyone else it was a parking lot next to a small airport perched on a peninsula between two shipping channels. They parked the car where channel met. That one point where two different paths coming from different cities combined.

To them it was a launching point to a place without boundries, rules, guidelines, or pressures. A place where they could just be. There were sailboats and houseboats dotting the water. Across the channel the sulfur mines billowed that familiar odorous smoke into the blue and orange sky. As the sun continued to fall and the world began to gray, they would lay in the bed of the truck wrapped in a blanket and like the smoke, just drift away. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.

Dedication

To you, who showed opened me up to my first real experiences. Who crossed worlds and lives to break me out of my own thoughts.

Prom

I had been dating her six-months and they still didn’t know by the night of prom. They lovingly and happily joked about my “mystery woman”, probably thinking that I was just being secretive. They were happy for once, filled with the anticipation of meeting my date for  my first pro. “You’re all grown up” my mom said with a smile and a hug. All I could do was look at the floor. My father was tying my tie when there was a knock at the door. It was Nardley. I knew it. My father reached the kitchen before I could get there and opened the door. I heard him say: How can we help you……miss?”

She replied “I’m Nardley, I’m Jake’s date to the prom.”

“Wait here” he replied.

My father returned to the room and said “Jake it’s for you” and gave me a look that I knew had changed his view of me forever.

When You Marry

Pages taken out of a 1962 textbook supposedly used for health studies class.

Mclaughlin and Loving

The fight for civil rights and in turn the right to love was fought through the American legal system.  Two cases specifically helped reverse the legal barriers against inter-racial relationships. 

McLaughlin v. Florida was a case where the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a cohabitation law in Florida was unconstitutional. The law had prohibited two people from living in the same home if one of them were black and the other person white. The nullification of this law led to the Pace v. Alabama ruling which had previously said that anti-miscegation laws were constitutional.  These two rulings led up to what is largely considered the landmark case on the legality of race-based marriager: Lovings V. Virgina. The Lovings case would declare the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924“, unconstitutional and put an end to all anti- miscegenation.