At my day care, Merry Moppets, there were two boys who terrorized everyone; staff, their own parents, but mostly little girls. I am sure they grew up to be self-hating bigoted homophobes. They'd follow me around, throwing sand at me and calling me the ugliest chocolate girl in the whole wide world. They told me I was brown because I was rotten and made of shit and things like that. This went on for some time, and one day I was crying when my mom came to pick me up. She was upset, and in between huge gulps of air and stuttering, I finally told her about the two boys calling me a stinky, dirty chocolate girl. She drove us home and put the needle on the record and sang Gil Scott-Heron's "Chocolate Girl" to me. After that, she talked to me about all my cultures, and how much I had to be proud of. She told me that when I was teased about my race, all I had to do was look to my family and my heritages and that would make me strong. So my first experience with racism was also something that, in the end, made me more appreciative of my heritages.
I know this story is Pollyannaish, but it's true. It's one of my favorite memories, because I trace my love of music to that late afternoon. After hearing that song, I was proud, no longer ashamed of my skin color. I *loved* my brown skin, cause no one else in my daycare looked like me.

"I tell my body to obey my soul, and thus I never tire"-Nikos Kazantzakis