Bernadene Jenkins

Booker T. Washington High School

Class of 1964

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Bernadene Jenkins - Class of 1964 - Booker T. Washington High School

First Name	Bernadene
Last Name	Jenkins
Graduation Year	Class of 1964
Gender	Female
Relationship Status	In a Relationship
About Me	I believe in the power of forgiveness, I believe all people are important. I believe there is nothing new under the sun. I know why the Egyptians left no written history-we too won't leave any written history. This is not the first "world". They think I'm crazy-I think everybody who doesn't believe as I do is.....I always say the wrong thing. I forgave my mom for all the things I held against her the instant she died. I wish she was here so I could love her some more. My biggest regret-that I didn't make her come stay with me. She didn't want to leave her house. She wanted to be there for her sons who didn't care enough about her. She has always catered to them. She tried to be both a mom and dad to them. She spoiled them as much as she could. I felt slighted, I was a middle daughter born between a beautiful older sister with curly hair and a blond blue eyed baby sister. Me, I was just "Jeanie with the light brown hair"-nothing spectacular or so I thought. Maybe she felt slighted too. I love you mom. My daddy was a deserter. He abandoned his six children and his over 25 years younger wife. I grew up in a time when it was accepted to abuse your children. Most of the men my mom knew wanted to beat the boys and molest the girls. They were Black men-sorry if I offended but it's the truth- I didn't say all-I said most. "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" So why lie? I going to tell my grand daughter not to sit in no man's lap-not even your daddy's. Cause right now I'm angry. Did I hear somewhere that the sins of your fathers last 7 generations. So bout right now we should recognize and cease the destruction. I don't like step-moms. I don't like step-dads. They can't help it. I try to be a good steppie- perhaps there are others like me. I don't feel appreciated by my stepson but I know his daddy brainwashes him. My old man is really sort of mean. So I forgive my stepson because I really love him even though. Lions kill lion cubs when they want to mate with the lioness. I guess we're all animals. My brother got beat butt naked in front of his five siblings by my mom's boyfriend when I was 6 years old. My brother was 9. My mom looked so bewildered, confused, hurt. My grandmother was there. I don't remember who else. I can hear my brother screaming to this day. Mom was compelled to go along with the program-get that boy in line b4 the white folk-that's what all the men said. So she endured my brother to get beat butt naked in front of his siblings. I was stunned. My brother was forever damaged. We all were. My brother was a good boy. They said he stole a 5 cent pack of charms. Beat him butt naked in front of us. Oh God, it still hurts. I imagine it was like a slave beating. I'll never forget. That's a memory that affects me and it's about me. My daddy had already deserted us. Our lives weren't like Maya Angelo"s in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. In Overtown we were "all those children" nobody could afford to feed. So Mom had to work and go to school. We never went to bed hungry. We had lunch money every day. We were clean. We never had rats or mice. We never went to Birthday parties. We didn't go to kindergarten but I was still one of the smartest in my class. But, we were damaged. I felt I was less because I didn't have a dad. My mom told me constantly that I couldn't do this or that because I didn't have a daddy. She didn't know better. My daddy was off preaching acting holier than thou. Just like my ex-husband. My daddy was full of sin. He left and never came back. Our family has a generational curse. We hate our mothers. We blame our mothers for everything that goes wrong in our lives. Daddy's are sacred-we created an illusion of a perfect dad. He was a perfect ass. Honor your father and mother-what does that mean? Still haven't figured that out. I honor my Mom-I love my mom. But him..he wasn't a dad noway-he just gave up the sperm. That's how I deal with it-he was just a sperm bank. How can I honor him? He left his sons to get beat and his daughters to get molested-we weren't worthy of being treasured. I was light-skinned as well as both my sisters. My brothers were brown and damn near black in the summer. Some people preferred the light children and some the darker. Around our house, my brother dared you to call him black-even though he was black and beautiful. We all were in varying degrees. My baby sister had blond hair and blue eyes. She was my grandpa's pet-we all felt it was because of her color. But she was sweet too and she was the youngest grandchild. Nobody held my little brother-he was cute too. We were treated like outcasts after my dad left. I didn't like that-who would? You had to be pretty or yella or have long hair. I was yella so I saw no beauty just in being yella cause I wasn't getting that special treatment. I thought dark girls were the prettiest. I thought dark boys were the cutest. I always had the blackest boyfriends-big lips and all. Nobody in my family ever told me I was pretty. They went out the way to compliment the darker child. I do it too but it's wrong.I feel that dark kids might feel bad about themselves-especially with all this talk about biracial, good hair/bad hair, Dominican, Puerto Rican, ABBies (Anything But Black). I was so hurt when James Earl Jones got on TV and started talking about how he was part this and part that-he never mentioned Africa. But aren't we all potpourri people? I'm had to teach myself to love Black. I had to teach myself not to be ashamed of dark skin and nappy hair. I had to teach myself to love us. I had to ignore media stereotypes and look beyond the hype. I think Wesley Snipes is gorgeous. He would never date a girl like I was. OJ wouldn't either. I don't even like to look at football or basketball because ball players think we're less. They marry White girls. They believe the hype-not all. Most. There will be no knights in shinning armor for us Black girls. I think Black men are whores-not all but most. Now they give us AIDS. I saw it happening a long time ago. I saw the casual attitude about homosexuality. Gay people have always had a profound influence in our neighborhood. They had clout, they stuck together. Discrimination? It was more discrimination because of color.Believe that! I have sarcoidosis. I permed my hair for the last time almost two years ago and started having chills. They wouldn't stop. I thought I was gonna go into shock. I should have called the ambulance but I am so afraid of being called a hypochondriac. Because I was perming my hair at the time, I developed a fear of perms. I mean, it alters the hair structure-why wouldn't it affect the brain? I just couldn't put that perm in my hair. Less than a year later I went into a coma. I loved my permed hair-I didn't go natural because I loved natural hair. I love it now though. I feel free. I look at myself in the mirror and tell myself my hair is nice every day. It's a growing process and I feel so free. Back to our family legacy "mother hatred"...my mom was angry with her mother for giving her away when she was a baby. My mom had to come back home when her foster mom died. She never fit in with her natural family, always felt unloved and over worked. She felt like a stepchild. When mom was just out of high school, my grandparents sent her to Kentucky to play the piano for this preacher and his wife in exchange for them sending her to school. She got on the train with one quarter and a sandwich. That preacher was my dad and my mom never saw his "wife" again. She didn't hear from her parents until almost a year later when my uncle came looking for her. My Uncle Cornelius. But by then, she had been tricked into marriage and was pregnant. Even when her appendix ruptured, her parents didn't come to see her or call. She blamed my grandma but I blame them both. What kind of people would do this to their daughter? I guess it was par for the course because I was told that my great-great grandmother Anna gave my great grandmother away. Maybe that's the way they got rid of unwanted children in those days. My mom says that her mother mistreated her-she never fit in and I think her big sisters were mean to her too. She was an outsider when she came back. Isolated. Rejected. Slaved. My mom had a sad childhood for the most part. Just telling what I was told-that's all. B4 I die. You know something? When a mom mistreats a child it's sort of like human nature for every body else to do the same. Its like a "pecking order". She felt closest to her sister Dorothy. "Dot" was smart and once had a dress made for her. That's a happy story she tells. When I see pictures of Mom when she was little, she never smiled. Never.. I'm just writing this stuff down-I really don't care who reads it. Maybe someone will benefit from what I'm telling...(read more)