I know yall have all heard the story of the lesbian high school student from Mississippi that was told she couldn't attend prom with her girl friend as her "date," nor could she or the date wear a tux to the event.
If you're not familiar, it happened in Fulton, Miss. to a girl named Constance McMillen. She's a senior at Itawamba Agricultural High and you can read about her ordeal here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_McMillen.
Well, yall, this has just crawled up my ass sideways and I can't seem to stop being angry about it. And with good reason. Today it came out that even though a Mississippi court ruled in favor her Constance and her right to attend, she was railroaded by the school administration, teachers, students and parents.
You see, those assclowns held a super-secret, private prom and didn't invite Constance. Which is bad enough by itself, but then they went a step farther by having the school sponsor and chaperone a prom in which only Constance and mentally challenged and handicapped students were invited.
So Constance and her same-sex date show up to this fake prom and are super-excited to be there. Until they're hanging out at the punch bowl, waiting for the party to get started and realize, "What a sec… Something's fishy here." (Lesbian pun not intended.) "Where's everyone at?"
And so realization sets in that those kids – all seven of them – have been singled out as DIFFERENT and UNWORTHY and LESS than their classmates.
Now excuse me while I go take some mediation to lower my blood pressure. Typing that last sentence made me emit toxic steam from my ears that could have destroyed Chernobyl.
I've been trying to figure out why I feel so strongly about this. I mean, anyone with half a brain is going to look at this situation and sympathize with Constance. But this is really bothering me. Perhaps more than it should. And after much thought, it finally occurred to me: I was they sort of kid that would have been invited to the fake prom. I was fat, bookish and quirky. I had fuzzy hair, wore glasses and drove a Ford Tempo.
Being different isn't always easy. Sometimes it really sucks. Trust me, I know.
But don't feel sorry for me or for Constance. I turned out okay. I became stronger because people weren't always nice to me. I became self-sufficient and comfortable in my own skin. I credit my mama and daddy for most of this. They are kind, wonderful, accepting people and the best parents I could have ever asked for. They taught me how to love myself and showed me that being loved in the right way by the right people had nothing to do with looks, size, race or sexual preference. If I'd been a skinny lesbian, they'd loved me the all the same.
I suppose that's what this is really about. Humanity. Small mindedness. Judgments.
And that we are what we are raised to be.
I remember the first time I realized the world was a complicated, strange place. I was about five years old and going to the local doctor. My great grandmother, Nene, took in me because of an ear infection. I can remember walking up to the front of the doctor's office on Main Street in Bude, Miss. The building was wide and had two identical front entrances. Nene and I walked up the narrow sidewalk and into the entrance on the right.
Inside the building, two rows of chairs were divided down the middle of the waiting room office and facied away from each other as if to create two separate sides. A receptionist's window served as the divider. Nene walked up to the window with me in tow and signed us in. Then she saw someone she knew on the opposite side of the waiting room. It was an elderly black lady named Miss Lily.
Nene was so excited to see Miss Lily. Nene was at least 75 years old then, but Miss Lily had to be in her 90s. She held a cane in front of her between her legs and was sort of permanently hunched over. Nene walked over and sat down next her, then patted the seat for me hop in next to her. For the next few minutes, Nene and Miss Lily chatted until the receptionist asked a question about payment or insurance or something like that interrupted them. Nene walked to the window, pulled out her pocketbook and began conducting her business, leaving me alone with Miss Lily for a moment.
As Miss Lily and I sat there in silence, a gentleman I knew from our church stood up and walked across the room to where I was sitting. I expected him to greet me like he did at church, kindly. In stead his tone was harsh: "You do not need to be here. Go sit on that side," he said and pointed to the opposing section of seating. Before I could respond or move, Nene was next to me, pulling me into her lap.
The man was undeterred: "Minnie, you shouldn't be letting her over here. What would her mother think?"
Nene was unfazed.
"I don't think she'd think a thing," Nene said sweetly before going back to talk to Miss Lily, who was smirking ever so slightly.
Finally the man turned and went back to his seat.
"Why did he say I couldn't sit here?" I asked.
Miss Lily spoke first: "Because you're a little white child in the black section."
Then before I could question it what a "black section" was, Nene spoke loud enough for the entire room to hear: "He told you not to sit here because he is an ignorant, old white fool that should keep his mouth shut… Now you sit here and read your book while me and Lily and talk… One day you will understand."
It was years later that I realized the doctor's office in my hometown was still unofficially segregated in 1985. And that my Nene, who'd been long-widowed and unaccustomed to take shit off any man, had balls so big they were hanging out the bottom of her housedress.
Don't read this an make assumptions. I am proud of the hardworking, self-reliant place I come from. I am proud of my roots and heritage. But sometimes, just every once in a while, I'd like for Mississippi to be in the news for something other than being a dumbass.
