An Open Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self: On African American History

Dear 13-year-old Erin,

 A couple things before I start on what I really wanted to tell you. The first is, great job growing out those bangs. Straight-across bangs were not a good look for you, so you acknowledged that and set forth to the task of getting rid of them. It took a while. But you got there. Also, don't worry that you've never been kissed. You won't meet anyone worth kissing until college anyway.

On to the more important topic: your recent report on Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. You've been reading voraciously for the last several years, lately with an emphasis on being well-read in the classics. You had heard about Uncle Tom's Cabin and To Kill a Mockingbird and many others along with reading Roll of Thunder,  Hear My Cry in eighth grade lit class. Have you read I Know Why the Caged Bird sings yet? I can't remember. If not, stick through the uncomfortable parts. It's worth it.

When the teacher assigned you to write a report about a person who is important in African-American history, you chose Harriet Beecher Stowe. This is an interesting choice, you. Harriet Beecher Stowe is not African-American. In fact, I believe Abraham Lincoln referred to her as the little White woman who started the Civil War.

I wish now that you had written about Sojourner Truth, or Harriet Tubman, or Dred Scott, or Phyllis Wheatley, or any number of other African-Americans with significance. But you didn't. You didn't know that what you understand now.

In your defense, as a White student at a primarily White school, you did take the assignment seriously, which apparently was more than most of your fellow students did. Rumor has it that the bulk of reports submitted for that class were actually plagiarized from the precursor to Wikipedia, or other Internet sources. You wrote a thoughtful commentary on the influence of a real person in your own words.

So, I wish that you had chosen someone else, but you did the best you could at the time. And I wonder, a little, 13-year-old self, if your choice was a significant one for you. Because here you were, a White student at a primarily White school, writing about how a White woman, albeit an imperfect one, albeit one with skewed views of slavery, albeit one who could have done more, who could have gone further, who wasn't of the community she represented, you chose a White person who took some responsibility for the oppression of another group. And that's something.

Well, I wish you had picked someone who represented the African-American community, you chose to see yourself somehow reflected in this history. I think, deep down, you wanted to see that this was your responsibility too. That it was unfair to expect African-Americans alone to make this change.

If you knew, 13-year-old Erin, what the next 15 years would hold, you couldn't have stood it. You would collapse under the weight of it all. We didn't. We survived so far. We found love, we found purpose, we found so much more than we could imagine. We didn't become a marine biologist or interior designer - we teach test prep. But most days, we're happy. Things are better.

And I think of you, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Maya Angelou, and To Kill a Mockingbird often. And how I learned from them the power of a story, in some cases a personal one, in some cases voicing the one someone else can't get noticed.

So keep reading voraciously. Keep that tender heart. Learn to forgive and give the benefit of the doubt. Practice gratitude. You are so much stronger than you think.

Blessings,

28-year-old self