Reflections on fear, ignorance, and racism
Tapia describes her realization that her parents, when they were offering her little encouragement as she struggled through high school, simply did not know how to deal with the situation. She understands that fear provokes racism.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Brenda Tapia, February 2, 2001. Interview K-0476. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JONETTA JOHNSON:
-
How did your mom and dad take it when you first went, were they happy
or…?
- REVEREND BRENDA TAPIA:
-
Actually, I realize in retrospect, because I didn't understand
it at the time, because I didn't really start looking at my
parents as human beings until I was about twenty-five. I mean when I say
human beings, they were always my parents, but parents have a way of
being demi-gods, and you don't really watch them, observe
them … you don't really judge them the way you may
other human beings. They were frightened. I didn't realize
that at the time, because you know, you
don't think your parents are scared of anything, and then as
you get older and get to know them, and realize they're human
too, and yeah, they really are scared. I realized they were scared. I
also realized, I had to accept that they couldn't help me.
Because I can remember coming home and sharing with my mom some of the
things that I was experiencing as they were happening. And what she
would say was: "Look, I didn't send you to school to
be happy, I sent you to school to get an education. You can deal with
that if you want to, but your focus needs to be on getting an education.
If somebody doesn't treat you right, or they don't
seem to like you, that's not important. That's not
what you're there for." And that was not how she
should've have responded, but I realize now in retrospect,
she was doing the best she could.
Like she said, she didn't have Oprah back then, so she
didn't know what to say. And I'm like:
"Thank God for Oprah now, but I sure wish Oprah had been thirty
years sooner than she was." And that's pretty much
been the story for me. I mean it was like it started with school, but I
found myself, after graduating from Howard, and it probably had to do
with the field I went in to, my undergraduate degree was in psychology,
and for the first ten years after college I was
blessed to work in master-level positions with an undergraduate degree
in psychology with only a bachelor's. You don't
find a lot of Black people in the field of psychology, so I was always a
fly in buttermilk, I was always the only Black. And so I began to
realize that not just my parents, but a lot of Blacks, because they had
not had the opportunities and the exposure that I had, I not figured out
how to deal with White people, how to relate with them, how to live with
them, how to work with them. I found myself repeatedly going to older
Blacks, or Blacks that I thought knew more than I did, trying to get
some keys as to how do I deal with the situation - "How do I
handle this?" - and I've never been able to.
The most recent being coming back here, because I've been back
here since 1985, a little over, almost over, yeah, a little over fifteen
years, and as a minister, trying to get support, help from - I belong to
a Black Presbyterian ministerial association, which for a long time I
was the only woman. I always find myself being the only Black or the
only woman wherever I go. I don't know why I don't
get to go to majority places but, at any rate, I got mad at them in
trying to get help. And it took me about five or six years to realize
that they weren't not helping me because they
didn't wan to, or they didn't care, they
didn't know either. In fact, they were
more afraid of Whites than I was. They had not had enough contact and
interaction with them to realize: "Well they're
really no different. Everybody gets up in the morning and puts one leg
in their pants and then they put the other one in. And, we are all the
same and there's no reason for us to fear each
other." And I experience that fear on both sides of the racial
divide. I see the fear in Whites, in terms of things like, saying things
like: "Well I don't know if I would feel, be welcome
if I went to a Black church." "Well of course
you'd be welcome, you'd be a lot more welcome than
I've been walking into all-White churches." And then
Blacks who will hide their fear behind: "Aww naww man, you know
I work with them all day, you know, I don't want to be
hanging out with them after work." Which is really just an
excuse of fear, it's like: "I don't think
I'll know what to say, I don't think
I'll know how to act." "Well it
doesn't matter, they don't think like that, we
shouldn't either."