Peace, and might I add an excellent question ot ponder.

When my parents moved to Miami, from Eritrea, I was 9. My first experience was with my own people. My sistahs and some brothahs were truly hating on me. We lived in an upper class Black neighborhood and they called me a "Pigmy" and damn we felt like we were living in a White area. They would say things like "Aren't you hungry?" and "Niggers leave town.", "Oh look your one of those African muts a mixed Nigger". It was horrible, to top it all off, my hair is loosed curled. I look more spanish (as per all the Spanish cats I encounter) than I do Ethiopian or Brazilian. So sistah's would just hate on me. "You think you pretty cause you have good hair!", or "Look at that bitch, she got white in her...oh no she's one of the dirty Africans." These things still sit in my forntal lobe, that was a traumatic time for me. But I'm stronger now, much stronger. The reason why I label these incidents "racist" and not "ignorant" is because this area hated us, and my brother was beat down by school mates. They basically stripped my brother of his clothes and told him to "Run Nigga, like you did in Africa." It's taken my brother alot to get over that experience. But that ish happened to us by our own Black people, who were considered upper class folks. Hate is hate, oh and the fact that my parents were faith ful Jews didn't help. My mother is dark skinned so she get called "tar baby" and just crazy stuff. We had all kinds of crazy mess painted on our house, in our pool...the whole nine yo. This went on til I was about 14 years old. Til this day my dad still tells the stories...But my family is a sign of strength in the community, which says alot.

All in all, I still love my people, because I've enountered some spiritually stong people. And I was taught even with all that happened to us, not everyone is like this.

Hate is a sad thing. Some don't believe their own can be this bad, but believe me we can be ever worse.

The most rewarding thing of it all, is that my parents never moved. We stayed and the neighborhood is very different now. But you know in the end, many of these people have asked for forgiveness...I can't say my entire familyu has crossed that mountain yet, but I've slowly allowed my self to feel for those who treated us like nothing. All just because of their own ignorance.

I've never really had racism against me, from a White person. Til this day, I've never been called a "Nigger" by a White person. But I've had strong doses of ignorance from Jewish people and some Whites who just won't even try and diversify themselves.

Peace and Respct in ALL-WAYS!

Jaila