Intent Authenticity And Your Audience

Cheers to another one of my favourite days of the week... Sunday!

This newsletter really took a lot of circling around for me. With recent events, it literally had me circling around my house, my mind, my past, my future, my pain, my experiences, but mostly my thoughts.

The support I’m seeing through social media and in the news is incredible!  I feel like I’m witnessing what will be taught in the history classroom of my grandkids one day. We are truly living in a moment of history and I’m being as present as I can be during this moment and grateful for the kindness and support I’m seeing. With that being said, I want to speak from the heart and not from the mind, enlighten and not persuade, share peace and knowledge, not for likes and followers. 

With everything that has been happening, I want to challenge myself and others. I want to understand the person who holds hatred in their heart toward another human being for the colour of the skin and how they got there. I want to understand who in their life taught them to hate themselves so much. I want to go beyond a square box on my IG feed to represent a hashtag that roams in cyberspace. I want to know the WHY behind the people who are ready to make the change. I want to see what is happening off-screen. I want to know why the world has become so dependent on the Gram to be the forefront of everything. 

It’s so easy for us to repost a story, a GIF or a picture and write a lovely sentence, but what would we truly do if we were witnessing the murder of George Floyd. Would we go into fight mode right then and there, or would we record it to make a post about it later?

I’m sure there are many who are tired of this subject being the main focus of all platforms right now, but there are more people who are tired of not having their voice heard.

We are losing sight of the issue while trying to FIX the issue. We have less focus on the mission and more on the drama. We need to give people time at their own pace to do their homework and speak to them from our hearts. We are too quick to jump into debates and banters to defend instead of seeing the bigger picture.  

For those of you who don't know me as well, my name is Pamela Facey, born to a white mother and a black father in 1983. My mother was one who loved so BIG and so many. My father came to Canada from Jamaica just before his teenage years and shortly after met my mother. One of my father’s favourite things to do was to breakdance at the CNE.  Throughout their relationship, they faced many situations of prejudice. For example, they were turned away from a rental lease because after the landlord saw the colour of my dad's skin, he said he could no longer go through with the lease. Four and a half years prior to me being born, my parents had my sister Priscilla, who was named after Priscilla Presley! If you haven’t met my BEAUTIFUL sister yet, she has slightly curlier hair than me and is a shade darker (jealous). For years and years,  we’ve had to hear RUDE ass comments like "are you sure you guys are sisters?” or "you sure you're not from the mailman?"... ALL because of the difference in melanin we carried. Growing up I was confused with these comments. As I’m sure with your siblings, maybe some of you look nothing alike (one being blonde with blue eyes and one brunette with brown eyes) but because they share the same skin tone, nobody says anything.

I grew up hearing many people calling my mother a "N****r lover". I remember always feeling outcast in groups at school. I would find out on Mondays that some of my white friends had slumber parties on the weekend, but yet again I wasn't included. From kindergarten to grade 7, you could count on one hand the number of black students in the school. I had a best friend, Melissa Watts and she was different. She had freckles and poker-straight brown hair. We would sit by the Casio cassette belting out the songs of Whitney Houston, Boys 2 Men and Mariah Carey (who is still one of my fave artists today, because she was the only person I could identify with). She saw me as nothing but a human. She used to make me braid her hair every time we had slumber parties because she wanted her hair to look like mine. She made me feel accepted for who I was. In our middle school years, Melissa moved away to Brampton and me to Mississauga where we lost contact shortly after. 

I went into culture shock when I moved to my new school and the first girl to greet me was Camille Cross. A dark-skinned Jamaican girl with short relaxer permed hair, baggy jeans, and a tee. I felt like I was witnessing a TLC music video. she greeted me in these exact words "are you black?”, I replied stating yeah my dad is... her response was "cool you can hang with us then…” Confused but kind of excited and intrigued I accepted the offer. Although the colour of my skin is high yellow with a slight glow, my hair being super curly and fuzzy and my nose being broader gave my blackness away. FINALLY, I was accepted by someone because I was black. It felt like life took a turn for me! Now my whole circle of friends were black girls. I became more exposed to the culture which made me more exposed to the hardships. You see, there’s a lot of pain in the black community that goes unnoticed by many.  From a young age, most black parents have to tell their kids that life isn't going to be easy. My father told my sister at a very young age that life was going to be hard for her, she would have to try twice as hard at everything because people would only see her as a black woman.  Imagine growing up with that mindset. Imagine when you see it become a reality. Dreams are not pursued the same. You grow up in a generationally cursed mindset. When given fewer opportunities, there are fewer resources and many young black men end up in the wrong stuff to try to make a better life for their parents and mostly their single mothers. I’m not saying this isn't the case for any other race, but it is the most common case in the black community and for that, many frown upon us for it.

Believing that cliques and thoughtless comments from my peers in high school was a thing of the past, it carried on right into my early years of working at salons. My old boss would make comments about my husband being actually good looking or clients of a darker colour walking in asking for a blowdry and the girl at the front desk telling her we didn’t do her hair type but that I could probably help her. Comments like these have been flying around me my whole life because people feel comfortable telling me "you're black but you're not REALLY black". It is time now to put those comments to rest. Yes, I come from a mixed-race but these comments and views are not okay. 

Especially now, I see it with my own children, people even have the nerve to say to me "Oh wow she is so beautiful, and she has a nice skin colour, she isn't too dark".  Last year, my daughter Madison had a classmate tell her "white people are better than black people" so of course, Madison came home to ask if there was a side she needed to pick. It’s truly sad.

They’re beautiful because they’re beautiful.

What I want everyone to know is that people with black skin are like any other race and colour. I am black but I am me, I am kind, I love God, I love people, I am able, I am worth it, I've been broken but I am strong, I've been shot down but I am courageous, I've felt ugly but I am beautiful. I've been judged but only God's opinion matters to me. I've lost hope but I am faith-filled. I am white and I am BLACK!

If you can love me, you can love ALL.

So I stand here today asking all of you reading this to act and move in authenticity. Open your heart to those around you. Whether you’re driving around in your car, going for a walk, or even out running errands, truly look into the eyes of the black community. In their eyes you will feel their pain, you will see their soul and you will feel their heart. We all bleed the same colour so let's stand up in unity today! Not just because of a trending hashtag or an Instagram GIF, but because we want to be better. We want the world to change. Don't just do it because you feel like if you don’t you will be looked down upon, but do the homework. Talk to someone. Talk to me. Be the change. Be the light.

Enough is enough... Yes ALL lives matter but right now while the black community finally has been heard, BLACK LIVES MATTER! 

I’ll leave you with this from our pastor this morning, don’t react, respond. The world wants you to RE-ACT which tends to be quick and fast. Response is slow and deliberate. James 1:19 “everyone was quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

I love all of you, let's continue to be supportive and make history AMAZING!

xo

Pammy