Where my Privalage got too?

I don't want to write this post.  It is too raw still.  Even thought some of it happened a long time ago.  As I was getting ready to write, it pulled out the Winnepeg Boyz. and rather that my usual page I came to a differnt one and a new song "So Far" which says it so eloquently "life ain't fair.  hey we all been there. I don't care if you a thug or gansta or a square.  a crooked system is a broken society."

This week was report cards and it brings up a lot for me as I have to go in and defend my parenting.  That's how it feels really.  I am laying a lot of other stuff on those interactions, years of bad school experiences myself, years of talks about S and calls from the social workers about if we need money for stuff, that my kid is dirty..... but it is deeper now.  Now I worry about having my children taken away from me.  I know that is some deep neurosis on my part, but it is also blood memory.  This is my secret fear.

I can hardly write this, this is my deep shame, but a few years ago, this week in fact, we got a letter... due to a stolen credit card number and a bill that didn't get moved over to the new card number we missed paying the bill for two months, this lead to a visit by the insurance company who pulled our house insurance.  This lead to a very hard year trying to understand what happened and how we could fix it.  A lot of fear for me.  Deep anxiety. 

http://www.creenisgaa.com/

This expereince broke something in me permamently.  I thought my education, high income level, whiteness, hetness, "normalness" should have protected me.  It did not.  I cannot trust institutions the same way anymore.  I was lucky I realize, compared to a lot of people.  Poor me, not having to deal with that reality until I was almost fourty.

I am tired after having to defend myself and my parenting for years.  We first took S to a phyciatrist when she was three.  It was clear she was not right.  The phyciatrist told us that she was like that because Joel had depression and I had anxiety.  We were bad parents! (the same Dr later wrote a letter that this obviously bright child was clearly suffering from Anxiety.)  All the teachers that told us she did not like school cause we were not postive enought or supporting her enought.  We were told we were just imagining her challenges. 

As I have learned more about indigenous history, my family history, all those people trying to work with the government in good faith to have those petitions go missing.  To have efforts to organize government be seen as terrorism.  To have the church and land agent working to bring people in and settling them on your land.  To fight in the courts for years to get land back and to get nothing.  To be dehumanized, to have your culture raped.   Reading things like "Half Breed" by Maria Campbell about how the land agent controlled peoples lives, cut women off from their property and rights and took away the children.  I am still privalaged but it is something I am less willing to sink into.  It doesn't give me the comfort it used to.

I always dress for those school interviews.  It is interesting how the suit pulls rank.  I could be a horrible person, but I get treated better when I wear it.  This time with my suit I wore my muklucks.  I spent so long trying to be normal hoping that would keep me safe, hoping that it would keep me under the radar, but it doesn't work, so I am working on being less afraid.  I am working on understanding my truth and enjoying the voices of those who are sharing their truth.  So go listen to Mary Lambert now you know my secret too.