I grow older and I like being around those that I click with almost instantly. It’s like we become cool and can talk and be friends, no questions asked.
This definitely wasn’t the case in elementary/middle school.
4th-6th grade were some lean years. It was the years where my intelligence was more mainstream, I was around the haves and have nots, got bullied the most, and got into a lot of fights.
I remember coming home from school plenty of days with my eyes filled with tears due to being bullied and made fun of. It seemed many found me a huge joke. It was either my hair, voice, light skin, weight, or knockoff clothes. I was always a target.
I eventually started fighting in school, getting detention. I was softer then but I was still hot tempered. I hated being messed with then and now! Needless to say, the anti-bullying laws came about 30 years too late.
My mom stayed up at the school in the principal, teacher’s and sometimes even student’s face. Yes I said students! The principal would tell her “Miss Lanier, you can’t talk to the students like that.” Mom “Well wait until Field Day or the school field trip! I’m tired of them messing with my son, he just wants to learn!”.
Pretty much every student from that time until graduation remembers my mom as the one that stayed up at the school or football practice protecting one of her kids. And to this day, some are still scared of her.
I got called some gruesome names also “nigger, half breed, half breed nigger, fat ass, retarded, nerd”. I was shoved, pushed, had stuff thrown at me, and I got beaten up and scratched. You win some you lose some. My generation didn’t need weapons nor did we try to kill ourselves due to bullies.
This all made social interaction more of a challenge for me. I still had a couple of friends, but I seemed to be the outcast among white kids who didn’t consider me white, black kids who didn’t consider me black, and smart kids who didn’t think I belonged either.
Some teachers understood, some didn’t. However, I knew I was going to have to handle bullies and mean kids in a different way if I was ever to survive high school and have more people like me.
#imjustdrew
imjustdrew 