Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul (31 page)

How could I return to school with everyone knowing my private business? For the first time I realized how humiliated celebrities must feel when their personal lives are publicly exposed without their permission. I went back to school nervously and with caution. I was very ashamed but determined to hold my head up high, even when I saw students staring at me. Where were those so-called “role models” when I needed them most? I wanted to hear how they would have dealt with this situation.

I was now referred to as the girl who got beat up and cut in the fight. I entered friendships with apprehension because I wasn't sure whom to trust. I began to have self-esteem issues and major problems with my family. I felt no one really understood what I was going through and that it was time for me to move on. I planned to run away from home. I packed up and off to school I went one day, never to return home again.

The thought of going somewhere new and leaving my past behind seemed like a great idea, but I realized that the hidden emotional scars would never be erased because of the visible scars that I wore daily as a constant reminder of what took place at school that day.

I lived with a friend's family for a while and eventually moved in with a relative who lived in another city. I wanted someone to hold me by the hand and shield me from my pain, but no one did. I was told to “be a big girl” or to “get over it.” I talked to myself a lot and learned to talk to God through prayer.

My self-esteem was not the same after this event, and it took a while to learn to deal with my emotional pain. My teachers were the inspiration that got my life back on track. They gave me good, solid words of wisdom. They even gave me “tough love” when necessary, and I learned to trust them and take their advice. Through their unending commitment, I began to believe in myself. I forgot about my “physical handicap” and began to focus on my inner strength and beauty. I gradually went from walking with my shoulders slumped over and hair covering my face to hide the scars to wearing my hair pulled back and standing tall again.

One day, during my college career, while I was working in a department store, I got a visit from the woman who caused me this life of pain. She stood a few feet away, and when my eyes came into contact with hers my heart began to pound uncontrollably. I felt the same rush of adrenaline that I had experienced that awful day at school, and I wasn't sure why she was there. Did she come to assess the damage she had done, or was she there to finish the job?

She immediately began telling me about what she had been doing with her life, as if I cared, and then she asked me to forgive her for what she had done. This was a shock!

A million thoughts rushed through my head. I even thought that she was a bit insane. Our conversation ended with me answering “yes” to her request. Then she walked away, disappearing into the crowd of shoppers as suddenly as she had appeared, never to be seen by me again.

It was at that moment I realized my life had a purpose that was bigger than the scars on my body and the hatred in my heart. It took many, many years for me to regain my confidence and self-esteem. I learned to find inner peace by surrounding myself with positive people and reading a lot of great books to help me understand why bad things happen to good people—more specifically, what I could do to overcome the bad things that had happened to me. I forgave—and learned to respect— my parents, realizing that they had done the best that they knew how at that time.

Many years later as I stood at the podium ready to deliver my acceptance speech for being inducted into the Highland Park High School Hall of Fame, I was overcome with emotion and humbled to tears. No one knew that the woman being honored for her accomplishments as a college graduate, international fashion model, beauty queen, NFL cheerleader, Star Search television spokes-model and successful entrepreneur was once too humiliated and embarrassed to show her face in public. Finally, I felt the courage to tell my story publicly for the first time.

I wanted the audience to know what built my character and gave me purpose. I wanted them to know the power of forgiveness. I wanted them to know that running away from home was not the answer to problems because when you run away from things, the problem is still there, and eventually you must deal with the problem in order for it to go away. I wanted them to know that you could overcome anything; to reach out to those who want to help you. I wanted them to know
me
, all of me, not just the “success story” they saw before them. I decided to
be
a role model so that kids like me would have someone to guide them if and when horrible things happened to them. So standing there in front of that audience, I said, “Let me tell you my story. . . .”

Tanya Hutchison

Queen Charlene

In the fall of 1973, I was a fourteen-year-old girl on my way to my first day of high school. I wasn't going to a school that was familiar to me. My parents hadn't registered me in time to attend any of the Catholic high schools in Newark, where I lived. As a result, they had to scramble to get me into the closest available Catholic high school, which was St. Cecilia's in Kearny, New Jersey.

That first day I sat on the public bus with sweaty palms and a jittery stomach. I reached into my bag and pulled out a small hand mirror. The cloud of my curly Afro surrounding my face looked a little lopsided, so I patted and shaped it into a neat dome. I stared at the round, full cheeks of my face and sighed. I hoped no one would tease me about my weight and quickly decided I would go in smiling, cheerful and chatting away like always, so they wouldn't even think about it.

I was feeling a little better as I got off the bus and walked through the doors of the high school. As instructed by the material I'd received over the summer, I made my way to the auditorium for freshman orientation.

“Hi,” I said to a boy with curly red hair and freckles sprinkled across his face. He looked at me and turned away. I scanned the small crowd of no more than fifty students, mainly female, for a glimpse of brown skin like mine or another curly-kinky Afro. It was a small group. I could find no match to myself in the whole room. I noticed a few students looking at me and turning quickly away. I smiled widely and waved at a girl who didn't turn away fast enough and she nodded an acknowledgment.

No smile, though.

Okay,
I thought to myself,
these kids are not that friendly.

I went through two or three classes, feeling the subtle chill from the students but glad to see that the nuns and other teachers were treating me with kindness and warmth. Stopping at my locker to drop off a book, I saw a note taped to it. I peeled it off and read three words: “Go home.” The third word is too disgusting to repeat. My heart rate tripled, and I felt a weight in my stomach like I'd swallowed a brick for breakfast.

I bit my bottom lip, using the discomfort to distract me from the urge to cry, crumpled up the note and let it drop on the hallway floor. I'd never experienced anything like this before.

Fine,
I told myself.
Okay, so this is how it is in this school.
I shoved my book into my locker and walked to my next class, chin up and eyes straight ahead. In my mind I repeated over and over,
They will not see me cry. They will not
see me cry. They will not see me cry. . . .

Lunchtime let me know that there was not one student willing to break through the invisible barrier around me. I sat at the table completely alone, ignored by them all.

I didn't bother to try to talk or befriend anyone else. I moved through the rest of the day focusing on my schoolwork and trying not to feel anything.

Finally, the school day was over. Seated on the bus on my way back to Newark, I pulled out my hand mirror again. My curly hair was peppered with spitballs. I picked them all out before I arrived home. I didn't tell my parents the details of my day. I knew that my dad would insist that I stay in that school anyway and stand up for myself. I saw no point in saying anything about it.

The next few weeks were a repeat of that first day with only slight variations. Lunchtime improved somewhat as the cafeteria workers began to join me at my table during my lunch hour. I sat at the table, a caramel drop in the midst of milky whiteness, joking, chatting and glad for the company of those older women.

Still, the animosity of my classmates was wearing me down. I remember overhearing someone loudly ask another student, “Where does she live, anyway? Why is she going to our school?” I just ignored it.

But one day, about a month into the school year, I entered the girls' locker room, sweaty and tired from gym class. I spotted the white paper taped to my locker from a few feet away. I placed one foot slowly in front of the other until I was standing right in front of the note.

It read, “You are not welcome here.”

With a shaky hand I snatched the note from the locker door and whipped around to face the girls.

“Who did this?!” I shouted as loudly as I could.

I waved the torn piece of notebook paper at the closest girl.

“Did you put this here?” I demanded.

She just looked at me, eyes wide. I glared around at the other faces all silently wearing the same expression.

“Listen up, all of you. I have just as much right to be here as any of you!”

I ripped the note into tiny pieces and flung it at them. They flinched as the pieces flew at them, fell short and fluttered to the floor.

“My parents are paying for me to go to this school just like yours.”

One of the girls made a sound, and I turned to her.

“I'll take you on one by one if I have to. You know where I'm from? Huh?! I'm from Newark, and I will bring my gang up here, and we will kick your butts!”

Quickly my mind flashed to my girlfriends, soft-spoken Tasha in her thick glasses, and tall, lanky Debbie who'd never had a fight in her whole life. But my classmates were looking scared, so I ran with it.

“Yeah, that's what I'll do. I . . . have . . . had . . . enough, and the next person who messes with me is gonna get it.

And I mean it!”

I turned away from them and pulled my locker door open so hard that it banged against the wall, ignoring them as I prepared for my next class.

For the rest of the day no one said a word to me or about me. They didn't even look my way. But for the first time since school started, I didn't have to pick spitballs out of my hair at the end of the day.

The next morning I took a deep breath before pushing through the school doors. My chin was up, and I was ready to do battle.

“Hi, Charlene!”

I whipped my head around in surprise, nodded and flashed a small smile to a girl with straight brown hair hanging down her back.

“Good morning, Charlene,” said another student. She was one of the girls I'd yelled at in the locker room the previous day. “We're really sorry, Charlene.”

My smile was bigger this time as I accepted her apology. The rest of the day was a blur. The girls had made a 180-degree turnaround overnight. At lunchtime, I sat with three of my fellow students and winked at one of the cafeteria ladies behind the counter. She smiled back.

The students joked and chatted with me, and we asked each other questions, getting to know each other better.

As the year went on, I became very close friends with three of the girls.We studied together after school, went to each other's homes and went to the school dances. The music and the dance moves at the school parties were different than what I was used to, but I joined right in and had a good time. Eventually, I joined the choir and the drama club. By the end of that freshman year I “stood out” in the best kind of way—a participant in school activities, friendly to all, talkative and social.

I decided to stay with St. Cecilia's for the next three years. And they were good years. As accepted as I was, I was still a bit surprised when my classmates nominated me for student council president in my junior year. I was even prouder when I actually won.

By the time I was a senior at the school, I strutted down the halls of St. Cecilia's Catholic High School like a queen.

Graduation day found me with a mix of emotions. My tears flowed freely that day. I looked around at the faces of my fellow students, and I was overwhelmed by their love. They'd taught me so much—how to stand up for myself, how to forgive, that I should always be true to myself and to go for what I want. Finally, their ability and willingness to change their attitude and behavior from hatred to love and acceptance taught me the value of seeing beyond the barriers of race, color or creed, through to the real person—through to the friend.

Charlene Copeland
As told to Sonya Simpson

Reclaiming My Soul

Y
ou must love and care for yourself because
that's when the best comes out.

Tina Turner

The weather was reflective of my mood on this particular autumn day. The sky was gray and full of clouds, with no chance of sunshine in the forecast. For five months I had been battling a serious blood disorder, but I realized that my physical illness was the least of my problems. It was my emotional state that was killing me.