Monday, March 15, 2010

African American Homeschool Mamas

I gotta tell ya, being a minority within a minority is really hard. Why? Only a person that is, or at least thinks they are, part of the majority would ask such a question. When it is "Black History Month", I want to go with other people that understand the looks of pity, that some people give when the tour guide mentions slavery. I want to be around people that share the same history and background as I do so that we can teach our children accurate history rather than the same 3 famous African Americans (Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Harriet Tubman) and slavery. I don't want you child hair molesting my child because my child's hair is the polar opposite of your child's hair. It is also hard to be a minority within a minority that is within yet another minority because I am what is considered to be a African American secular homeschooler. I have experienced firsthand that not all groups that say "all are welcome" mean it. I can't honestly say if it was my skin or that I didn't belong to the church that apparently they all belonged to, but I drove 30 minutes to a park day where the people wouldn't talk to me and their kids totally ignored my children. For the record, my children are very hard to ignore. All that to say, I found one homeschool Mama online in a group that lives here and I met another at a birthday party. Although my children attended school with the second Mama's children, we had never formally met. Anyhoo, apparently I needed to vent and express my joy in finding other Afrikan Mamas in the area. Now, I hope that we actually have something in common.

4 comments:

  1. Came across your blog today and I'm so excited to find it!! I would LOVE to add it to our growing list of secular blogs at my website: www.secularhomeschool.com! If you would be willing, would you mind dropping me an email at info@secularhomeschool.com?? Thanks!!! Keep on blogging!!!

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  2. BLACK HISTORY MONTH?! My children will never know about that since we only study OURstory. It is harder to connect outside of the internet...I worried more about that when i had just one (very social) child, now that i have two, at least they have each other to play with.

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  3. Oh wow sis, I totally feel your emotions on this one. I am always seeming to be the odd one out. I just recently started feeling like this with the local groups in my area. But luckly I have finally taped into the other mothers of color who are stay at home homeschoolers. I do have to drive at least 30- 45 minutes away to get to most of the events but you know it is worth it for my children to have friends that look like them and school like them. I don't want them to get use to it being all one way all the time. I mean I didnt have as negative a reaction as you experience but I did start to feel like I had less and less in common with the other caucasion moms in the group.

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