I Don't Have any Poor Stories.

I grew up in the suburbs. A small town called Plainfield Indiana. The town was 99.5% caucasian and then, there was my family. I always tell the story about not really knowing I was African American, Black, Negro, until I was seven years old. I was in a Brownie troupe. I was sitting with all the other little girls playing a game, called, guess who's missing, when it was my turn to leave the room. That's when I heard a little girl whisper, "don't tell the big thing about her, you know, she's black!" Oh my God, what, I am different than my friends, what? Why didn't somebody tell me? After my inital shock, I went on with my middle class life. There were no food stamps, no welfare checks, no public transportation. No one ever beat me and I didn't call my mother momma. I ate dinner on china at my grandmother's home, yes all of my relatives owned their own homes. I played volleyball, ran track, had baton lessons, gymnastics and the like. When I turned sixteen, I got my first car, a buick skylark, not the corvette I wanted, but it drove! I say all this to say, there seems to be a stigma if your African American and don't have a poor story to tell. There seems to always be a reference to how poor you were, who was poorer. Someone always asks remember when someone's mother hit them with a shoe, or when the rent didn't get paid. I believe those are definitely experiences, but not the only African American experience. Have you ever sat in the pew of an African American church service and heard the minister ask, Yall, remember, or, been in the midst of other African Americans and been excluded, when you could not relate to walking long distances, not having large Christmas celebrations or birthdays. When I'm in those congregations, I so want to yell out, no, I have no recollection! I say all of this to say, that the African American experience is a broad experience. It is not exclusive to just one experience. Why as African Americans do we allow members of our own race to paint us with one paint brush? Oh, yes, I have had my own African American experience, not quite a caucasian, but not accepted by many if my own race for many of my young adult years, I was not "black enough". No, I have no poor stories, unless you count my days in my college dorm room at Indiana University. I believe that some wear their plight through poverty like a badge of honor, a right if passage. Congratulations, you made it, but, does that make anyone else less deserving of their accomplishments? I don't want my African American children growing up ashamed because they have never experienced poverty and don't know the crowds of public transportation. But they do have a value system. A value system that can be taught no matter what your station in life. While in NYC, recently, my youngest tried to give a donation to every homeless person on the street. While other children often turn from children different than themselves, my oldest is the first to defend. My point, too much emphasis, even among a single race, to separate and distinguish. I don't have any poor stories, but I've got plenty of life stories. What's your life story?