As I have shared here, I do not ever equate what I experience out there to what African Americans have endured, and yet live with. Yet I sure can relate in more ways than one. I have written about my dear friend Nora who became an adoptive mother figure/mentor along with Ella, Jackie, and Joseph when I was young. Nora and I became in demand as speakers because the ways we both had risen above severe challenges. Nora was African American but I no more saw her color than she my shortness. And she was astounded to meet someone white who knew more about black writers and artists in America than she did, because of what I wrote in yesterday's blog how Langston Hughes literally saved me at age fourteen by giving me someone I could identify with, concerning the hell I was enduring as a Little Person who had nowhere else to turn.
I spent a lot of time with Nora and her family over those years, and have numerous photos of that time. One thing I haven't touched on here is how dark I am. I have very olive skin and spending so much time outdoors with my horses, made me even more dark. Besides having black/brown eyes and hair. Guess what though? No one in my immediate family including grandparents had my coloring. All had VERY fair skin, blond or reddish blond hair, and blue or green eyes.😖
My parents were asked, and I am constantly asked what country I am from, or if I have African American blood in me (which given my attachment to Langston Hughes and Nora, made me proud. In the photos I have with me in the midst of Nora's family taken in summers, I am actually darker than they are!😃
Recently I learned if one parent has blue eyes and one green eyes, or both have blue or green eyes, it is supposed to be genetically impossible for them to have a child with brown eyes. I asked my parents many times if I had been adopted and they always insisted I was not.
I have been told though, Felix Mendelssohn, is my great, great, great uncle. His sister, Fanny, married Wilhelm Hensel. Fanny was a composer in her own right, while Wilhelm was a artist. Their father, Moses Mendelssohn, a philosopher, and I share a very uncanny resemblance. Same shaped dark eyes and facial structure. He was also very short. Also many say I resemble Felix Mendelssohn too. My geneticist, Dr. McKusick who compared my shared facial similarities with both Moses and Felix firmly agreed. Besides my having the facial similarities of Moses and Felix, everyone on my father's side, including my father, were pianists and artists. Though talent and being born with the soul of a horse, are not exactly genetically inherited are they?🤣
Even though I have become a very sickly pale these recent years, I am either still questioned where I am from, or called not just a midget, but a black midget, or worse, a "n***a" midget. It's not just the being called that word which upsets me. It is the hurt and outrage I feel because of those I love so deeply. After I became a part of Nora's family and friends when they heard me being called those two words, it was intense hurt and outrage they felt. For they too, so deeply loved me in return.
Anyway, I only have ever had one encounter with police in my life aside from the two who escorted Patches and I during The Ride. To complete a theatre set, my crew assisting me and I worked a little past 2 a.m. I was exhausted. As I was driving home, I was in the turning lane of a busy intersection. The light turned green for the cars in the two lanes next to me. Without thinking I proceeded through my RED light by turning left. Thankfully, no one was coming from the other direction when this happened. As SOON as I began making the turn I realized my mistake and briefly threw both hands up in the air, exclaiming to myself, "Oh shit!"😬
Immediately after I did that, blue lights began blazing on the car behind me. Now I really exclaimed to myself, "OH SHIT!"😱
Once I crossed the lanes of traffic, I pulled over. The officer was apparently calling to check on my license plate to see if I had any warrants or anything else criminal I was up to. When he came to my window, he was LAUGHING! He told me when he saw me throw my hands into the air immediately realizing what I had done, this meant I was alert to him. Still he wanted to see my license. When he saw my height was 4'3" he suddenly blurted out, "Why you're the Patches Lady, aren't you?!!"
Though a number of years had passed since Patches and I had done The Ride and were in the news so much, there still are not many Little Persons around, especially one with a horse. Then with concern, he asked what I was doing so late at night...was I okay? So I explained I was a Theatre Set Designer, and since opening night was two nights later, with the help of my crew, we finished the set.
"Wow...do you know what? My wife and I were able to get tickets for opening night! We're looking forward to it! And now I can tell her I know the Patches Lady who designed the set!"😃
With that he sent me on my way. When he and his wife arrived at the theatre two days later, they discovered someone had upgraded their seats from midway back, to two near the front.🤫
Yet it has never been lost on me through the years though, as nice as this dear officer was to me, had my driver's license shown my race to be African American and a male, who did the same thing I did by immediately realizing his mistake after innocently proceeding through a red turning lane light, the situation encountered could still have been a far different one.😪
My deep abiding hope is for change to finally be on the horizon for African Americans in the U.S., and is finally grasped. I hope there will be change for all race relations here. Someday, I hope there will even be change for those being targeted with the sheer ugliness and danger just because they happen to be a "midget." And one who also happens to have a very dark complexion with the soul of a horse.🐎💥🐎
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