Ed. Note: We invite you to send us your story. You can send and request that we not put your name as the person in the story. Having discovered how rich are the lives of those in Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community, it would be great for you to share with the rest of us.
This story was not written by Marceline Donaldson. It was sent to us by someone who knows her – more having observed her life than someone who was a close friend. She was not too happy to publish it, but we prevailed so your feedback by sending your stories would be much appreciated.
The “Marceline’s story” she refers to, in case you are confused – because we were – can be found in this blog https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/archives/4804
A “Friend’s” Observation of a life full of lessons on oppression and how it affects those who are forced to experience it.
A difficult and awkward title, but its is the best I could do and I am not sure you are going to publish it. Hope you do. In this era of Donald Trump and the rise of the racist/sexist groups we need to know what others experience.
I was born and raised in Minneapolis. Most would consider me fairly wealthy. Until Marceline came along I really didn’t think much about that. I suppose I took it for granted that I was supposed to live as I did.
My first conscious experience of race and sex discrimination was when I saw what happened to Marceline when she moved into a house not far from me in Wayzata. I would see her in Church on Sundays, but didn’t pay much attention. We didn’t travel in the same circles, but the affect what happened to her had on my life was profound.
I always lived in White communities. My neighbors and everyone around me were White. Somehow that didn’t strike me as being racist or racism and certainly not sexism. I just lived the way I was raised without question. It was a comfortable life. My friends were great and people I had known for a lifetime. And then along comes this woman with small children and the neighborhood went ballistic.
From a very safe distance I watched what happened. A friend of mine was involved and all were very angry like – ‘who does she think she is; doesn’t she know her place; why did she have to move into our community wasn’t her own good enough for her?” And then I saw the damage done to her house before she could move in and felt the shock that I knew people who could do such a thing. It was profound.
That wasn’t the first time this same woman caused a stir. I heard the stories of what happened before Marceline moved into my neighborhood. Apparently, she lived in another neighborhood in Wayzata and the man who owned the house was appalled at a black family living in his house. I don’t know how she moved in without his knowing she was African American, but watching Marceline over the years, today, that doesn’t surprise me one bit.
He bragged about waiting until Marceline left the house with her children and he then went in and ripped the faucets apart all over the house so there would be no water. I couldn’t imagine coming home with my children and finding the faucets all over my house ripped off and lying around. It was when I heard that story that I began to realize I lived in a White neighborhood without any of “the others” living around me because people like that horrible man existed. He and others were people in the society in which I lived who made sure my neighborhood would always be White. That was an eye opener and I have never been the same.
There was a small buzz at Church that Sunday and when I joined the “buzz” group I discovered what happened after the faucets were removed. Apparently, Marceline called an attorney and was going to have the home owner arrested for what he did. He backed down because she was in the process of also calling the media and I don’t think he wanted the publicity.
After that, everyone expected her to leave the neighborhood and move into a black neighborhood where – as the talk went – she would be more ‘comfortable’, but she didn’t do that. She moved into a more exclusive part of the neighborhood – which means an area where the kind of separatism with which I grew up reigned and the people would do everything they could to fend her off – and they had the power to do it ‘under the table’.
“Her story” picks it up from there, but her life was not easy and with several small children I still don’t know how she survived all of that to still be here and still fighting the battles that we set her up to fight so she and others like her would not move into “our” neighborhoods.
That changed my life. I was no longer unconscious about the dynamics in my neighborhood. I haven’t become a civil rights fighter. In fact I don’t get involved, but I do send money to others who are fighting and keep up with many of the battles going on.
You are probably calling me a coward about now, but that is all I could and can handle and unless lightning strikes I will continue in that vein. It isn’t much, but it did determine how I raised my children and they are far more active than I am and very much aware of the diversity or lack of it in whatever they do and wherever they live. I don’t think they realize they owe that to their mother’s experience many decades ago.
If you don’t print this, its alright. I just wanted you to know a part of how my story and Marceline’s intersected. I wish I could have been more involved, but that is just not who I am. Mostly, I feel guilty from having watched all of that and did not reach out to help. That is probably why I decided to write this. I often think if I had called her to tell her what was going on in the background even that little bit could have helped, but I couldn’t bring myself to do even that. What I did do was to raise my children in a very different way from how I was raised. I am amazed I’ve written this and fully intend to send it to you. Please don’t put my name to anything.
P. S. I am sending a donation and will continue to send donations because I very much want to see this publication and this business succeed.
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Tags: Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Racism, Sexism
