So I'm talking to my daddy today and we we're talking about highschool stuff, which lead to kid stuff and my old friends. Yeah I'm posting anonymously. Yall scare me.

When I was a little girl I had a asian indian friend in elementary and middle school. His parents hated me and I didn't know why at the time but now that I know this it might have been because I am African. I picked up on that his skin was patchy like lighter and darker and it got a little more visible whrn we got older, but he moved schools before highschool so I never saw him again. Daddy was telling me his mom came up to him in the store and apologized for something she said to him when we were kids but I didn't even know they knew eachother. He had to sit down on a bench with this woman and she had a break down about how dumb she'd been. He didn't say what she did to him but he said she had avoided us and other poc people on purpose so her kid would have a better life. The spots on my old friends skin came up and she was putting skin bleaching stuff on him. Dad said he thinks she ment she started doing it when he was little bitty, but he couldn't remember how she said it that made him think that. I'm glad this woman stopped being racist I guess or at least knows that it was wrong to hate on me and my family, but was appalled me was that she abused her son like that to make him whiter. Yall I grew up in a tiny town and the boys parents were some of the richest people in town that wasn't elderly. Everyone knew they owned half the restaurants there and lived in this enormous house with lots of land on the highway. It was the 80s but with that cash you would think she wouldn't be worried about whitening her kid like a tshirt. I want to think maybe she faced a lot of racism in her life and that blinded her but I still don't think that's good enough for what she did. He had spots all over him! His left arm looked like a spotted cat it was so bad. I just can't believe she did that.

I wanna make a safe place to share if anyone has experienced abuse from discrimination or know someone who has. I could fill a book with the crap my kids have delt with. I sure can't think of bleaching their skin to solve it though.