Confronting Myself

Time has come for me to put up or shut up. In the back of my mind, I knew this day would come sooner or later.  

 

Diabetes is a harsh bitch! It exacts a slow steady toll on the body and if you take her for granted for too long she'll wreak your whole body. A complete loss.

 

After my most recent annual checkup, the results came back and I learned that there was a small amount of protein in my urine sample. This indicates kidney damage. During my follow-up call with my doctor, she expressed some concern about my urine test, but assured me that the damage so far was minor.  But, we have to address it.  She wanted to prescribe me another diabetic drug, Januvia, because in addition to lowering my blood sugar, it would, also, protect my kidneys. After that follow-up call with my doctor, I received a phone call from the hospital pharmacy. I talked to the pharmacist and outlined to her changes I was making in my diet and exercise, during that call we elected to try a higher dose of a diabetic drug that I'm already on, Trulicity, and see how well I do with getting my proverbial "crap" together.

Like many others, this past year of pandemic quarantine has been pretty f'ing hard. 

A year of soul crushing isolation, self soothing, tedium. I wouldn't characterize myself as being depressed (TMS treatment and a prophylactic dose of Prozac has that abated), but choosing to quarantine pretty hardcore has taken a toll on me physically and to some extent emotionally as well. 

 

The things I used to soothe me into oblivion during the pandemic (Ice Cold Coke Zero, Haribo Gummi Bears, Cheese Popcorn, Jolly Ranchers) are the things that I have to let go. I will openly admit now that my relationship with Coke Zero has been extremely unhealthy. Like only drink Coke Zero and no water for days and days and days. That's gotta take a toll on my kidneys. So, I'm weaning myself off Coke Zero, replaced with Lipton's Diet Green Tea and water.  Food wise, it'll be counting calories and carbs again.  Goal is to stay under 150 net carbs per day.  I know what to do, and I'm going to do it.

 

As for exercise, one might be asking themselves, "Well, why doesn't she just go outside and walk or go to the gym..."

I used to LOVE going to the gym. I miss my friends from 24 Hour Fitness! I look forward to being able to go back to the gym safely again one day soon, but right now it's not an option I'm willing to entertain.

 

Walking outside. 

 

I have always had a certain amount of anxiety about walking around outside.

OK! I have a LOT of anxiety about walking around outside.

WHY?

BLACK PTSD! Google it. It's a thing.  I feel like only other Black people can really relate and understand what it means to have thoughts in the forefront of your mind about whether or not you can SAFELY be in a space occupied by non-Black folks.  Living here in Johnson County, KS, comes with prestige, affluence and ease, but the Black PTSD tax is HIGH. The anxiety is palpable.

Black PTSD is a difficult topic to unpack.  It starts young with us.  I remember growing up in the deep south being told every day where I could and couldn't move around.  "That there is for Whites and this here is for us."  Being 6 years old and told "Come on here. We can't go in that door. That's for White folks. We gotta go in through the back service entrance." Knowing where you could and couldn't go was a matter of life and death, then and now. 

 

For example, when driving between Arkansas and Kansas City, I'd drive a very strict route. If you didn't already know, the route down through MIssouri Hwy 71 down into Arkansas would lead me through some of the most actively, overtly racists parts of the country. Southern Missouri, The Ozarks, Northern Arkansas. 

 

2007-2008. My mother was dying. I made several trips back and forth between Kansas City and Arkansas to see about her and my grandmother. One time, I remember stopping in Altus, AR. I had to stop. I was low on gas, starving and I had to go potty. I had just gassed up my car and drove across the street to McDonald's to use the facilities and then grab a bite to eat for the road. As I was getting out of my car, a White man stopped me in the parking lot and flatly stated that I should get out of town before the sunsets.  He was serious.  The sun would be setting in about 30 minutes. Needles to say, I finished my transaction and got back in my car to continue my trip.  I can't say I was even all that phased by what he told me because it wasn't anything I hadn't heard before.  I just drove reflecting on a billboard sign I had seen earlier that day as I crossed the the Arkansas/Missouri border off Hwy 71 that read "Kozy Kountry Kampground".  I knew what that meant. 3 Ks.
I learned that when you see words spelled with K that should be spelled with a C it probably means Whites only. Especially in that neck of the woods.

 

So yes, legally, I am free thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. But, I still feel the vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow even today.  It's that bad old Black PTSD. I feel like it must be in my proverbial DNA. With so many Indigenous, Black and Brown people dying at the hands of White Supremacists (police) then and now, you know what I'm talking about is true.  Hell, it's almost a year ago that George Floyd was murdered and Black Lives Matters came to the forefront of everyone's life worldwide.

Rewind back to 2005. Reminds of me this "neighbor" down the street from my house in Brookside (he lived near 65th and Brookside Blvd.)

One evening in particular, I remember walking past this house. There sat this burly mean faced White man. He had planted himself in front of his house with his arms folded as tightly as the legs of the folding chair he sat in.  As I walked by, I saw that he stared at me coldly and darted his eyes towards his Rotweiler that milled around the front yard behind an invisible fence. I knew what that look meant.  I stopped walking past his house and soon after, he sold his house and moved. I wonder why! :: sighs ::

 

Even though, Brookside is considered to be a very liberal and a very LGBT friendly neighborhood, there are still those who don't want Black folks in that neighborhood. Because how could any well meaning, concerned White Brookside resident discern an affluent white collar Black Brookside homeowner from a poor Black somebody from the other side of Troost. :: insert obvious eyeroll and indignation here :: You see the literal dividing line between the rich White side and the poor Black side of town was only minutes away. TROOST BLVD. Racial tensions were always, it seems, pretty high on the west side of the dividing line.  After all Kansas City is where red lining was born.  Least we forget, JC Nichols and his red line. I think it's still on the books that no Blacks, Jews or Irish could own homes in Brookside and other JC Nichols neighborhoods around Kansas City.  So being a single Black woman homeowner in Brookside was something of a novelty. Shortly after I moved into my home in 2004, neighbors came by to ask me specifically where I worked because how could I even afford to live there, right?  They didn't care about anything else, I had to prove that I could be there.  Once I even saw a detective cruiser at the end of the block keeping an eye on my house. The neighbors were skeptical. Had to be something illegal going on, otherwise, how could I afford to live there.  Eventually things calmed down, once the neighbors understood/accepted that I was a college educated, white collar Black gal who worked at Sprint in Information Technology. They conceded there wasn't any criminal activity going on in my house. No human or drug trafficking at my address. Just a Black woman that dared buy a house in Brookside.

 

Some might quietly think, well, just move to a predominately Black middle class neighborhood in Kansas City? The housing market in the Kansas City area is crazy competitive right now. The old Black neighborhoods are being gentrified as fast as they can kick big mama out of her house and flatten the lot.

 

Fast forward to today, living in Prairie Village, KS. It's close to work and the house I rent is affordable. OK

Sitting on my sofa this evening, I glanced over at my two little girl dogs, Jenga & Scrabble. The looks on their cute little faces begged for a walk outside. So, I steeled myself to confront myself and my legacy of anxiety.  We went for a walk.

It's crazy to think that walking out of my front door to walk two adorable dogs was something I had to really make a point to do, but it's a struggle I have to be willing to wrestle. 

With every step, I wonder will this be the day some asshole neighbor calls the police because I walked past their front window because what was I doing walking in that neighborhood anyway! Just in case, I make sure to take my identification which shows my address in the event the police show up asking me questions. 

 

One shining light in all of my Black PTSD, is when I see a "Black Lives Matters" sign in the yard/windows of a house, it reassures me.  My anxiety satiates a bit. The signs of the allies help cancel out the dread of seeing every Tea Party, Trump, or proverbial/actual Beware of Dog sign. To my allies, I want to thank you for being brave and showing that you are support my existence.  If you see me walking by, watch out for me and keep me lifted up in your prayers. It helps me be stronger and to not give into my darkest anxieties.

 

I gotta die one day. I know. But, will it be that ole dirty bitch 'Diabetes' killing me slowly, chopping my organs down day by day or will it be an angry racists asshole because I was somewhere they thought I shouldn't be.  Well, I can control diabetes.

 

"If You Don't Stand For Something, You'll Fall For Anything."

That pretty much sums up how I feel about a situation I was presented with a few weeks ago involving someone I considered to be a close friend.


I'm sure there will be those who want to know what happened between us and here is my side of the story.


You know how you know something is bad or wrong and you just don't want to deal with it, but then one day it all explodes in your face?  Yeah, that happened recently and the aftermath of that incident has shown me a lot about myself and those around me.


The backstory
I had a close friend whose husband is an avid hunter and fisherman who CHOOSES to hunt/fish in Schell City, Missouri.  Early on in our budding friendship, she mentioned one time that she had to go pick her husband up from a hunting trip in Schell City and that it was no place I could ever go there because it was a very racist town. :: duly noted ::  
This is the fork in the road all those many years ago that I probably should have walked away or limited my interaction with her and her husband, but the truth of the matter is that there's racism and racists everywhere and I really didn't see them as such so I brushed this fact and other racist aspects (in-laws and relatives) of their life aside.  I turned a blind eye because I didn't want to deal with the reality of the situation and the impact to our friendship.



Short detour
I never really knew how racist Schell City is until today.  That's when I decided to pull back the covers and found that it is listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Map and the by Anti Defamation League. In fact, Schell City seems to be at the epicenter of a lot of hate related activity.  I'm sure if you keep digging you'll find more and more damning material about that place.



Fast forward to a few weeks ago.
One of our mutual knit night friend who is Jewish showed up and said in a joking manner something along the lines of, "Yeah, you know "She" is going to buy a hunting lodge in Schell City, so that means we will never be able to visit." I didn't laugh.  I was confused and a little hurt.  A short while later, "She" arrived and the conversation turned to the holidays and that "She" had bought her husband a $600 lifetime hunting license and that they were considering buying a hunting lodge in or near Schell City and then in a joking manner "She" said something like,  "Yeah, I'm sorry, but in case of a Zombie Apocalypse,  my husband and I will be falling back to Schell City."  I didn't laugh.  I was more hurt.  I asked clarifying questions in an effort to better understand the reasoning.  Tried to make some sense of what I just heard.  I remember that she seemed very curt, even defensive as she answered the questions and I explained that I don't know anything about hunting or what goes on out there.  The volcano was lit now.  It was only a matter of time before the eruptions began.


How could anyone that I looked up to and thought so highly of do such a thing?  How could anyone joke like that? 

The issue of race came up again later that night, when she passed around photos of her nieces and revealed that one of them had just recently told her father about a boyfriend that she had being seeing on the sly.  I said, "Well, at least, he's not Black" because during a previous knit night she told the story of one of her in-laws who dated a Black man much to the chagrin on her father who, by her accounts, is an unabashed racist.  That sent her down a rabbit hole of redress about her in-laws and which one was and wasn't racist.  Making excuses for some of them because they had worked with or maybe found a Black person attractive.  For the record, just because someone thinks a Black person is hot, doesn't mean they can't be racist and call them a nigg3r as soon as something is said or done that they don't like.  Just look at what happened with Terrence Howard.  Been there, had it happen to me too many times lately.  Got the t-shirt. Sadly, it happens more than you think.  To which, I replied, "Either you are or you aren't racist"  There's no splitting hairs about it. <- remember this one.  I'm coming back to it later. 


There was tension in the air.  I knew nothing would be the same again after that night.  Not ever.


A couple days later, I saw a post go by on her Facebook wall that really made me angry.  It was about the "Wild and Wonderful White of West Virginia".  You see, I had watched an interview where one of the White family is wearing a trucker hat with the Stars & Bars flag and the word REBEL stenciled over the flag talking about how the White family are the true rebels of the South.  Now, I'm Southern and I know any good ole boy that wears the Stars & Bars is probably NOT a friend to Blacks or anyone else that's not White.  Anywho, to make a long story short, I was lurking and watching people comment on the post and somehow the chatter turned to jokes about linens, sheets, domestics, white.. and this is where I really got angry because that's only a hop, skip and a jump from joking about white sheets aka the KKK and that's where I lost it.


I had never been faced with someone so close to me making decisions that would impact even my ability to be seen with or visit them ANYWHERE.  I had never known anyone who willingly, knowingly and purposefully would go to, participate at or even purchase property somewhere like Schell City AND/OR think it was ok to joke with me about it.  This revelation was earth shattering and I cried many days and nights about it.  I was heart broken.


The bottom line is this.  If you truly are not racist, then don't buy land in a city that has been identified as White Supremist, don't choose to hunt there, don't go there, don't spend money there, don't legitimize it, don't make excuses for it!  No one is holding a gun to either of their heads to go to Schell City, so why go? Why buy into it?  It doesn't make sense to me.  The other heart breaking aspect to everything that happened is that she joked about leaving me in a time of need.  That is something that is never joked about in my family or in my culture because you never leave anyone behind.  That's something you NEVER joke about.  I would never ever think to joke like that especially knowing that I have no blood ties here in Kansas City, I'm at least 8 hours away by car from my nearest relatives, and no one to look after me if things were to go to hell in a handbasket.  It would be me and Miss Kitty Phat Phat against the world...as usual.


I tried to reach out to a mutual friend of ours to get their take on the situation, to see if I was over-reacting, but she refused to get involved claiming she didn't want to take sides.  All I wanted was a sounding board, not for anyone to take sides.


A couple days after the Facebook incident, I spoke with her on the phone (very calmly, I might add) and explained how I felt about everything that had transpired.  I tried to explain why I was hurt and upset, but she wasn't really trying to hear anything I had to say.  Instead, she was defensive and indicated that I was being hyper-sensitive about the Facebook post, adding that if she said that out loud to anyone else she'd be a bad White person. That's when I realized that no matter what I said, she was not going to listen.  Maybe she just couldn't understand.  Maybe she wouldn't allow herself to understand.  I remember her saying at one point that she had married into it and what could she do?  I told her that she didn't have to change or do anything.  That I was the one who had to change.  That we could never be good close friends because there are barriers in her life that fundamentally prevent that.  Barriers she has chosen to accept.


I remember her telling us once at knit night about her father and how he was the first White man at his college to have a Black roommate.  Her father is deceased, but I thought to myself.  What would he think about what she has chosen to do? Back then, he could have said NO! I don't want him in my room, but he didn't.  He recognized that the color of a man's skin is no reason to hate him or be separate.  He didn't split hairs about it.  He just did the right thing.


After our conversation on the phone, I lost all respect for her and, by proxy, her husband and, to be honest, many of our mutual friends.  I couldn't even look her in the eye the other day when I returned something I borrowed from her.  We haven't spoken since that one phone call.  Neither of us has anything to say.  It's over.


I'm ashamed that I didn't stand up for what was right sooner, but rest assured I'm never going to back down and I'm never going to let this type of thing happen again.  I'm going to continue to call it as I see it.


So now, I am faced with the whole social media un-friending ordeal and removing myself from our knitting group and living with the consequences of the stand I have chosen.  I know I am going to lose a lot of friends in the process, but I will hold my head up high and know that I did what I thought was right.  


Those who would call me friend should never allow or tolerate any kind of racism or hatred in their lives because if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

is feeling waggle-y today. On the menu tonight, baking, knitting, watching Eureka marathon. FTW!

asks if you would rather wear the Nubrella http://ping.fm/mPhlG or a simple rain poncho?

is thankful for family, friends, health, wealth & many thanks to the men and women of the US Armed Forces who secure our freedom everyday.

quotes "Uh Oh, Ken! We may have fallen into the intellectual deep end here and if you try to grab onto me, we'll both drown." -Tracy Jordan, 30 Rock S4:E8

I don't care how much money you make, where you live, what you drive, whether you're gay or straight, fat or thin, tall or short, beautiful or average, rich or poor or if you subscribe to a religion or not. If you're my friend, you're my friend. I accept you for who you are and that's ALL that counts. If you feel the same, steal this status from me, your friend, like I just did from another friend.

"Curvy women are real women. Skinny women are real women. Women who have had boob jobs or lip enhancements or liposuction are still real women. Size 0 may make no sense mathematically, but a woman who wears that size is as real as the one who wears a size 16. What makes us “real” people is not the shape of our flesh but our basic humanity. And we lose our humanity when we judge – not when we lose weight, gain weight, or make the intensely personal decision to undergo cosmetic surgery."

— Hugo Schwyzer

is going to geek out, watch movies and knit today! FTW! I might even go grocery shopping and grill too, but that's kinda if-fy, right now.