Reflections

Sambo

• By fannieb
• September 25, 2015
• No Comments

When I dread something it’s oftentimes because I feel I have limited or no control over the situation I’m about to face. The dread causes a suffering of sorts by trashing my energy well in advance of the event. This dread also colors how the event will play out because I have closed my heart to its lessons.

The lack of control I feel is usually around my inability to impact the circumstance or influence people to see how a different approach might be beneficial. Oftentimes this struggle and dread arises out of my anticipation that I will not be listened to and is reinforced at the time of the dreaded occasion during a conversation that is disjointed – one person saying one thing another person responding with something that does not appear to be related to what the first person just said.

I am a woman of brevity and I speak only when I feel I have something valuable to say. So if my comment or suggestion gets brushed aside by the seemingly unrelated banter of the receiver I feel annoyed and think my role in the discussion is useless, futile, and a waste of my time. Where does this reaction come from? Why does not being listened to annoy me so? I think it is the arising of my gremlin, my inner critic that has made me worry about fitting in, belonging, and wanting to not be different.

My gremlin, which I call Sambo, represents my insecurities stemming from the first time I became aware that I was different. As a child my kindergarten teacher read my class the book Little Black Sambo. At age five I was not aware of its racist overtones and I went home excited about the book and asked my mom to buy it for me. It was at that moment, from my mother’s reaction, I learned immediately that there was something wrong with this book and with me. We lived in an upper middle class suburb of Philadelphia in the early 70’s and I was one of only three blacks in my elementary school and the only black in my kindergarten class. But I hadn’t realized I was different until Little Black Sambo came into my life. In reaction to this affront my mother had a parent-teacher conference with my kindergarten teacher and this represented for me “a scene”. This strong reaction by my mother made me want to shrivel up, blend in, and go back to not knowing that I was different.

Now, years later I’ve tackled major parts of my gremlin. I no longer try to be average in order to not call attention to myself and to blend in. I now work hard to be the best, even if it gets me attention or creates a buzz. But there is a piece of my gremlin that still lingers; it is my need to feel respected and my irritation around seeming disrespect. Sambo will often appear when I interpret incongruent responses to comments I’ve made to mean that my participation, and by extension, that I am not valued (because I am black).