The invitation had finally arrived. I could put off the inevitable no longer. When my aunt first told me that we might be having a family reunion sometime in July, I thought of all the previous reunions that were somehow always postponed to "next year." When I started receiving phone calls from relatives inquiring if I had heard about the reunion, I pushed it off as another fantasy that would never become a reality. Now that I had the invitation right smack in my hand, I could not deny it any longer. I would really have the opportunity to see all of the relatives who were scattered throughout the southern states. I should be ecstatic, thrilled even, thinking about seeing all of my loved ones. Instead, all I can think about is how to get out of going. Don’t get me wrong, I love each and every relative in my family, but we just don’t always see eye to eye.

My father, David Louis Hall Sr., was born December 8, 1947 in Rose Hill, North Carolina to George Curtis Hall and the late Teresa Burnett. He was the second born of five boys and one girl. My dad did not have the best of life growing up, and he makes sure that everyone knows it. Let’s not forget his ever-famous quote, "I had to walk ten miles to school with newspaper in my shoes, and you want a $99 pair of sneakers?" Honestly, my dad did have some rough spots in his life. My grandmother left the family when my dad was 10 years old and moved to New York taking only the baby girl, Shirley-Ann Hall. Her reasoning was that once she got settled she would send for the rest of the boys. It took three years for her to get established (Interview). Those three years are years that my dad does not speak about. He only acknowledges this as the period when his mother was gone. My grandfather, George Curtis or "Pop", as he is known remained in North Carolina and is still there to this present day. When my grandmother left Rose Hill, she vowed never to return and that is exactly what she did.

On September 13, 1969, my dad married my mother, Bernice James Hall and that is when all of the trouble began. When my sister Tracey and my brother David were born, in 1971 and 1973 respectively, my mother made an effort to be a part of the Hall family. She attended all of their functions, every party, and every special occasion, yet she still felt like an outsider. By the time I was born in 1979, my mother just stopped trying. You see the Hall family is a bit excessive. They indulged in excessive talking, drinking, and so on. My mother was brought up in a different way. She was raised in a Christian home where certain things such as drinking and smoking were not allowed. My grandparents Austin Sr. and the late Rosa Lee James raised my mother and her siblings in a very strict environment where certain behaviors were not tolerated. My mom in turn raised her children the same way. We were taught early on what was acceptable and what was not. We were not allowed to stay at any of our relatives’ houses without my mother due to the excessive behaviors that took place. The environment was unsuitable for children to be around. All of my cousins were welcome to stay at our home at any given time for any length of time, which they did on a regular basis when they were allowed. My cousins loved to stay at my house and hear the peace and quiet that was there.

The older my cousins got, the more distant they became from my siblings and I. They began to follow the patterns that were set before them, which did not fit my lifestyle. While they were out partying, I was in school trying to get to college. It wasn’t something that I always desired to do, but I knew that it was something that my parents required of me. In my striving to do better, I began to realize that I was not welcome in my own family. Seeing me was a constant reminder of what they could have been. It started off small at first. When we had family gatherings, like Thanksgiving Dinner and Fourth of July barbecues, I went along with my dad. I would notice that after the usual greeting, my cousins would wander off and leave me with my aunts and uncles. After their usual interrogation into my life, I was left to myself. So, gradually I began to pass on attending these functions. Why go someplace where I am not welcome? That of course only added fuel to the fire, and so came the infamous name of "white girl." It wasn’t just for me though. My sister was included in the name-calling. Evidently because we were trying to make something of ourselves we were trying to be "white."

Among the African-American community, to call someone "white" was the ultimate sign of disrespect. "Turning white is a metaphor used be several groups referring to assimilation into Anglo-American mainstream culture" (Allen, 107). This is not something new that has just started. For many years African-Americans have called their sisters and brothers out of their name to show that they feel one is being disloyal to their race. "Especially since the black pride movement of the 1960’s and the related white ethnic "revival" trend of a few years later, vivid vocabularies have emerged to scold persons who are thought to be assimilating. Many of the words connote ethnic betrayal" (Allen, 105). The funny thing is no one is being betrayed. The name-calling comes when someone is trying to better themselves. When a person becomes successful in life and can afford to partake of the finer things in life, they are immediately labeled as "trying to be white." There are many other names that are used to describe the "unloyal party" such as "Uncle/Aunt Tom", "Fudgesicle", or the ever popular "Oreo" (black on the outside, white on the inside).

I believe that my cousins chose to call my sister and I "white-girls" because they were not angry with us, but with themselves. They did not achieve the level of success that we had. As a matter of fact, my sister was the first person in my family to graduate from college. She earned her Associate’s Degree in Computer Science in 1989. She went on to join the Air Force and now she is happily married with two children. I have 20 cousins on my father’s side of the family. The majority of my cousins never left New York. All of my female cousins have children out-of-wedlock, and they never really excelled on the academic level. In essence, they have brought into the stereotypes of African-American females. "Female – headed households have become normative with rates of about 60% for blacks" (Washington and LarRot, 15). My cousins were angry with themselves because we in a sense, made them look bad. We all had the opportunities to succeed; yet they chose a different path. I don’t fault them for that, but I also feel that they should not fault us for the road we chose to follow.

By calling us names, they tried to make us feel bad for the choices we made. Sometimes, it worked. I used to get angry and upset. And I recalling doing many silly things to prove that I wasn’t "stuck-up" and "trying to be better than everybody else". I remember an incident that took place at my great-grandmothers funeral in 1989, in North Carolina. I was 10 years old at the time. Someone had made a big pot of pig feet (a southern delicacy). I was not used to eating that kind of meat because my mother never made it. All of my cousins were eating it and teasing me because I wouldn’t. They were calling me names and saying how "prissy" I was acting. To prove them wrong, I sat there and tried to eat some of the pig feet. Eventually I got sick and regurgitated the entire meal. That was the last time I tried to prove myself to them.

One thing I must admit is that I too have been guilty of the name-calling. I have on more than one occasion heard myself say that somebody is "acting too white." One incident was with my own sister. We went shopping and we both picked out certain outfits. She stated that she did not like my outfit, and boy did I get heated. "If you weren’t trying to be so white all the time, maybe you would see that this is really what is in style now" (Tamisha Hall). I didn’t think about it at the moment, but now I see how easy it is to throw out words without really thinking. "Blacks in the past, as well as the present, had many nicknames for other ethnic blacks that were a system of color-caste coding and signaled an acceptance of one criterion of white racism" (Allen, 16). There’s no specific set of clothes that are for whites or for blacks. The same is true for food, schools, and so on. What’s good enough for one is good enough for the other.

My father did not agree with my mother on the situation with his family. He was used to being around them and the way that they behaved all of his life. He couldn’t understand how hard it was for her to be around his family all of the time. When you have been in an environment long enough, it begins to become comfortable to you, and that is exactly what happened with my dad. He didn’t see anything wrong with the behaviors of his family because he behaved in the same way. My father would get upset with my mother sometimes because he felt that she was influencing us to separate ourselves from his family (Interview). That was not the case at all and it became evident as my siblings and I got older. We had our own minds and we made our own choices concerning what we would and would not do.

It wasn’t until 1996 that my dad began to see things from a new perspective. It was around this time that he stopped drinking and it caused such a change in his life. My father began to understand that to love his family does not mean that he always has to be around them, which is exactly what my mother had been trying to show him all along (Interview). It was not that she did not love all of her in-laws if she did not join in with the things that they did. Just because she did not condone their lifestyles did not mean that she did not love them. The same thing goes for my siblings and I. We learn how to love from a distance.

Once my father understood my mother’s point of view, he was able to pass that on to the rest of his family. Once they understood, it was much easier for all of us to get along. My brother who is now 25 years of age spends a lot of time with many of his male cousins. His little daughter, who is four, knows the other side of her daddy’s family and she loves them. My sister does not live in New York where the majority of my extended family is now located, but she visits all of the time. Whenever she comes, she makes an effort to see her aunts and uncles and if she cannot see them, she calls them. She too believes like my dad that her son and daughter, ages 6 and 7, know where their mommy came from and the legacy of her family.

I don’t have any children at this time, but I think a lot about how I will raise them when I do have them. I feel that every child should know both sides of their families regardless to whatever circumstances arise. If you don’t know both sides of your family, then you can’t really say that you know who you are. Many times, history repeats itself. If you have a very loving family where everybody is very close and harmonious, then you can follow in those same footsteps. If your family is like mine where everything is not always rosy, then you can learn what mistakes to avoid in your own life. I’m glad that I know both sides of my family. I know the good and I know the bad. I know what to accept and I know what to reject. I would definitely allow my children to know all of their great-aunts and uncles, and all of their cousins. I would raise my kids to know that to love someone does not always mean that you agree with them. It also doesn’t mean that you accept what they do, but you love them in spite of that.

One thing that my entire family now agrees on is that my mother raised me well. If it had not been for her diligence and her unwavering I may not be where I am now. I might have ended up like many other young people today. If I was not given certain standards to live up to, then I may not have achieved the level of success that I have. I may not have had the drive in me to attain the things that I have.

When I see my family, I won’t be able to hide out any longer. I might as well prepare myself now for the questions that are sure to arise. "When is graduation again"? "Are you sure you want to be a teacher?" "Are your grades holding up?" I think that is the only reason that everyone in my family wants to see me, just so they can inquire about my college life. I am the first graduate of the Hall family that will ever be allowed to walk the stage. My sister left for the Air Force before her graduation ceremony, so no one got the opportunity to cheer her on. Now all the pressure is on me. I have to be the one to do it. Not just for myself, but for my parents, my aunts and uncles who never had the opportunity, and for all my cousins who did not make it to this point. I think for every African-American family there’s somebody who is supposed to be the one to make it happen. "In 1992 alone, only 2,164 blacks graduated college with a bachelor’s degree compared to 31, 385 whites" (Statistical Sourcebook, 13). It is a really big honor to many African-American families to be able to say that someone in their family earned a degree in college. I know that when I sit on that stage on graduation day, I’ll be making a lot of people proud of me. They can’t wait to see me at graduation. For now, they will just have to settle for seeing me at the family reunion.
 
 

Allen, Irving Lewis. The Language of Ethnic Conflict: Social Organization and Lexical
Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983

Washington, Valora and LaRot, Velma. Black Children and American Institutions: An
Ecological Review and Resource Guide. Vol.16. New York and London: Garland
Publishing Inc., 1988

Black Americans: A Statistical Sourcebook. Information Publications printed in the
United States of America, 1995

David Hall. Oral Interview, March 10, 1999

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