Unfortunately getting kicked out of school, in-school suspension for tardiness often that I couldn’t control, or never returning for that matter, would be a commonality for me growing up.  I went to well over 15 schools in my K-12 education now that I’m doing the math, I just don’t remember them all. I guess I can’t blame all of my negative experiences on me being a Black survivor of the commercial sex trade, unless you would count what I experienced my mom go through (she never identified as any of those things by the way, majority of folks don’t identify as a survivor or a sex worker).  Research says you should count it.  Research says that a child that witnesses a caregiver experience domestic violence has the same impact as if they had experienced it themselves.  The same can be said about the commercial sex trade: exotic dancing, prostitution, exploitation, and various online forms of pornography and the likes.   The intersectionality that is me; being Black, being a woman, being a survivor of many things and a child of a parent who was a survivor of those same things is indicative of years of trauma I was exposed to as a result of abuse; abuse that is derived from sexual assault, prostitution and exploitation. One of the main barriers my mom and I faced as a result of our lifestyles was stable permanent housing and the ability to maintain it. I developed a phobia of being late that led to me being chronically late from my childhood through my early adulthood.  I hated being looked at and developed a fear of public speaking as I would have to be introduced to a new set of kids multiple times a year.  By the time I got settled in one school, we had to move to the other side of town, or out of town for that matter.  Ronald Regan had yet passed the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987), later the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (2000) so her help in getting me to school was minimal at best.  I just wanted a safe place to go to school from and still to this day I don’t have a safe place to stay, to go to school from….

Something said get up, looking at the clock it was 1:24am, and I had court in the morning, “Jesus,” I said out loud as I got out the bed and walked to my door where my shoes were neatly placed by it.  The owner had a plumbing leak due to a resident backing it up 2 weeks ago and feces and whatever else was tracked all through the house so there was no way I would wear my regular house shoes to go to the bathroom, or anywhere else in the house.  Grabbing my role of tissue, I noticed the door closed which meant someone was in there.  Putting my back to the wall I patiently waited as I heard “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” of what sounded like a spray can that went on for close to a minute, maybe more. I needed a safe space, I needed school, thoughts of all the schools I attended flashed before my eyes, settling on my last school, Pepperdine….

“Is there any way I’m able to stay on campus?” We don’t allow virtual students to stay on campus, but I have some resources where you can stay at least for a little while.”  “Ok.” She directed me to a website that offered students, primarily students of Pepperdine rental leases and other various forms of housing options.  Almost halfway done with my master’s in legal studies I found myself houseless yet again.  My mom was getting worse and I had just lost my job again for doing what I was trained in Graduate school to do.  Scanning the site, I selected various houses and shared apartments for follow-up.  Closing the tab on my phone.  I got up to answer my mom’s door.  It was her neighbor, “Is your mom here?”  “She’s laying down.” I said as I sat back down.  “Tell her I need to see her,” she said as she turned back around and slammed her door adjacent to my mom’s.”  Getting back up, I too slammed my mom’s door. I went to my mom’s room and slightly opened the door.  My mom had always been so small, but her frame almost dwindled away to nothing.  You could barely tell that she was under the covers except for the rise and fall of her body with each labored breath and the top of her head peering out from under them.  Closing her bedroom door back, I grabbed my phone and checked it for any takers for a place near my school.  She had just returned from Dirty Rice’s house and while she was gone the management office had lied about coming to fix the stove, refrigerator, and check the moisture that would overcome the whole carpet every time it rained; along with other serious issues in the house.  They had conveniently lost the ROI which allowed me to advocate on her behalf, so I had to rely on her to do it and she just wasn’t any more.  She had asked me to be her home care provider, but I told her I wasn’t going to get paid for things she wouldn’t allow me to do.  I would just do whatever she wanted me to when she allowed me to.  In the end I think someone else was getting the money and not doing their job, but I don’t know that for sure.

It would be close to 2 weeks before someone accepted my request for a place. I actually had 2 in 1 day; which was perfect timing because I needed to go for a weekend class and I would be able to check it out in person and see if it was a good fit.  The place I was most interested in was in Calabasas, had one roommate and the other one was out of town indefinitely.  Booking my flight and hotel reservations I was eager to get out of town too, get away for a while.  Besides, every time I came back my mom made sure to let me know I wasn’t welcome. I mean she always made me feel that way, especially these past years, but this time it was different.  She had begun to not make sense about a lot of things, ignoring hospital visits, not taking care of herself or her house, not even driving her car.  I can still hear her say “Girl you better quit coming here before you end up not being able to make your dreams come true,” without hesitation I would reassure her that “I’m not gonna leave you mom, I’m not, I’m always gonna come back.”  The week before I left for California when she went to see Dirty Rice she had said, “I’m free,” before leaving.  I didn’t know you were captured, I thought to myself.  Thinking nothing more of it, I was happy to have the space for myself, maybe I could clean now that she was out of town. While she was at Dirty Rice’s I tried to sleep, tried to get them to fix things so the apartment would be livable, and look for work, and apply for food stamps as well.  One day I came back to find one of the neighbor’s associates trying to break in but she had a key.  “What are you doing?” I said.  She immediately dropped her keys and acted like that’s what she was doing but in front of my mom’s door. “Oh, hey I dropped my keys.”  That was a lie, I just didn’t have the energy to debate it.  My mom had lost her keys a few weeks back, maybe that’s where they were. 

Again, I reached out to her management office to plea for them to at least change her locks.  I explained why, but it fell on deaf ears. One time I was entering the bottom door when I heard her door slam shut and here comes the maintenance guy. He didn’t even look me in the eyes as he brushed past me.  Thinking it weird, I unlocked her door and went inside to see that the tale, tale trap I had set in case someone came in had been disturbed.  It was him that had been in my mom’s apartment; the maintenance guy.  I immediately went out the door after him, skipping steps I practically flew down them and out the main door. I could see him speed walking towards the office.  He had been the maintenance guy for a while, and I had never seen him moving so fast.  “Hey” I yelled.  He kept walking. Quickening my steps to a full-blown run I yelled “Hey, maintenance guy” a few more times finally catching up to him as he reached the steps to the management office.  Touching his arm, he turned around.  “Hey were you in my mom’s apartment?” He begins to shake his head and with his thick Russian accent he says “no.” “Yes, you were,” I heard come out the door.  “You didn’t have permission to go in.” And with that he just gave me a cold stare that said, so what, what you gonna do, and he turned around and walked away.  “Don’t do that again,” I said as he walked into the office.  Turning around, I made my way back to my mom’s apartment because neither me nor my mom could deal with the overpowering air freshener that I could smell from outside of the rental office.  Besides that, wasn’t the only weird thing that went on.  It was 80 degrees outside, yet the apartment felt like there was air conditioning.  When I said it was freezing, I had to open the door to get heat from the hallway, I kid you not. It could have been coming from downstairs because the lady that lived down there always kept the curtains tight and door closed, it didn’t matter what season it was; it was weird. It made me think of how my mom would say the same things sometimes.  It would even wake her up; either extreme heat or extreme cold and I too experienced them both.  Resigned to doing some cleaning I carried out bags of stuff that had accumulated around her bed. 

Thanks to Dirty Rice she was now a hoarder like he was and it didn’t help that he would continue to bring her stuff that she didn’t need but he did.  Sorting through all the stuff into 2 big white bags, stuff that she wasn’t even able to go through due to her being weak, I was determined to take them to the garbage.  Mainly, because it was stuff that could potentially catch on fire.  4 large bottles of lighter fluid, and lighters that you would light barbeques with.  Why would someone bring all this stuff and push it by her bed?  Never mind, I was throwing them out.  As I attempted to pick both garbage bags up, I discovered that they were so heavy I could barely lift one up let alone both.  As I carried and half dragged the first garbage back down the stairs and out the last door, through the walkway and to one of the garbage areas.  I realized this was going to be too heavy to even lift.  After a few tries, I decided to just close it tightly and leave it on the side.  As I made my way back with the 2nd garbage bag here comes another one of my mom’s neighbors with the bag that I had just through out.  I mean he was sweating and in a hurry.  I didn’t know what to think of it.  “Why would they be taking my mom’s garbage I thought to myself.  Ignoring it I went back to her house and finished getting my things together for my trip to California as I didn’t belong there like my mom said, I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.

“You don’t belong here, go back to Africa, you African booty-scratcher!” Cisely yelled at me from the big toy.  Tilting my head back looking up at her “what is that, and I’m not from Africa, I was born at Grouphealth in Seattle.” “Yes, you are, you’re from Africa, my dad said all people who look like you are,” throwing her head back she laughed and made wild jungle sounds as she bended her knees and swung back and forth on the bar above the slide. “Whatever,” I said as I decided to find somewhere else to play.  Somewhere away from her constant badgering and laughing at me that seemed to follow me anytime I wasn’t in class.  I had been asking my mom to help me make Cisely stop for a while, but I guess her behavior wasn’t enough for the school to do anything about it.  One day coming home from school sitting my kindergarten size backpack at the door, I washed my hands in the kitchen sink as I prepared for an afternoon snack I said, “mom those people are religious at that school.”  Looking at me with curiosity, she said “Religious?”  “Yea, religious, this girl keeps calling me names and telling me to go back to Africa.”  “What did she call you?” “She called me the N-word.”  “You mean prejudice?”  “Yea, prejudice, them people are prejudice.”  “Well you do have Ancestors from Africa who were brought over as slaves and it is there shoulders we stand on, be proud of it and I will call and talk to them people, don’t worry,” she reassured me.  Back then I didn’t know how much of a minority I really was in Bellevue at the time.  I had an older friend that was maybe 2 grades above me who went to school with me, which was the little sister of my mom’s friend and there was one other mixed boy but that was it.  There was a total of 3 Black kids in the school. And I wondered if they had too experienced what I now know as bullying. 

Not too long before that incident on the Big Toy, Cisely had whispered “nigger” in the hallway as I was coming out of the bathroom. As I chased her, her blonde hair adorned with red silk bows bounced and I almost grabbed one as she mouthed “nigger” one more time before ducking into her classroom that was a few doors away from mines.  Defeated, head down, I turned around and headed back to my classroom.  I felt hopeless, just like that day.  Holding my head down I made my way to the half woods half creek play area quickly getting lost in my own thoughts of grandeur I imagined myself in a palace with my husband, and servants and all the food I ever wanted when I felt an object hit me on the back.  Turning around I saw Cisely pointing and laughing before she bolted heading for the clearing that ultimately led back to Ardmore, our school. 

Standing there for a few seconds I watched her run parallel to the small creek and decided if I would run after her this time.  Looking at her positioning and the clearing in the woods I made a decision to catch her, and with that I sprinted after her.  With my eyes focused on the blonde trail that was her hair in the wind, I jumped over small logs and through baby bushes determined to catch up to her.  Still running I extended my fingertips grabbing a handful of hair I yanked. “Ahhh,” she screamed as she landed in the creek.  With my hands still intertwined in her now wet hair, I unwrapped them and bent over her and whispered, “I’m not from Africa but my Ancestors are and they don’t play about me.”

Deuteronomy 32:7 (KJV)

“Remember the days of old consider the years of many generations: ask thy father and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.”

References:

National Black Women’s Justice Institute
Resources | NBWJI

Office of Women’s Health: Effects of domestic violence on children
Effects of domestic violence on children

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CHOP), Domestic Violence and Child Abuse
Domestic Violence and Child Abuse | CIRP
Research | Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP)

Futures Without Violence: Children
Children – Futures Without Violence New

Child Welfare Information Gateway
Child Welfare Information Gateway | Child Welfare Information Gateway

National Institute of Health / Pum Med Central (PMC)
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Frontiers in Public Health
frontiersin.org/journals/public-health

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
nctsn.org

Journal of Global Health: Causes of preventable death among children of female sex worker mothers in low- and middle-income countries: A community knowledge approach investigation (JOGH)
Causes of preventable death among children of female sex worker mothers in low- and middle-income countries: A community knowledge approach investigation — JOGH

Books:
Pushout by Monique W. Morris

Intersectionality by Patricia Hill, 2nd Edition