Respectability

So at the tender age of 6 I had a major awakening, and it was one that would leave me torn throughout my childhood. When you look around you, and poverty and ignorance is all you really see, it is an amazing thing to know or even think you are more than that, and so I would always struggle with that, that feeling of being less. I always felt I wasn't as good as others becaues they had more,or because their family acted better than mine did. It was like I wasn't as important as they were because of it. You know people do a real good job of bringing that home to you. Back then, people would treat you differently if you were poor. I think it was more prevalent back then, but I know it still exists today. People would look down, demean and just give no respect whatsoever to me because my parents were who they were. Of course my father didn't care, he wasn't even around, my mother she didn't care either. She let her family, or her people as she called them cuss and hit me and never once did she stand up for me. Strangers would make rude comments about and to me or scream for me to shut up or sit down and that was all somehow all o.k. when those same people would never dream of doing someone else's kid that way. No one that I can remember as a child ever showed me any respect. Not even teachers it's like because my parents weren't respectable in their eyes neither was I. This to though had some benefit to me because even at a young age I determined in my heart and spirit to always behave and act in a manner to gain respect and to this day I think I have done this so at least there's one thing I have followed through on in life.