In September 2020, I joined numerous parents in the whole new world of virtual schooling and juggling a career without, seemingly, missing a beat. In that blended world, my self-proclaimed Princess Scientist Fairy glanced over my shoulder and exclaimed, “Hey, that’s my special book!” She was referring to an email from the Inventors Hall of Fame listing 10 Books to Help Children Celebrate Diversity in STEM. My daughter has an autographed copy of What Color is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That is her special book.
Thanks to my mom, my daughter’s standard for successful scientists is minority women. According to her, her grandmother is the world’s best scientist, and obviously, all great scientists are POC and immigrant women, like her grandmother. In her world, everyone listens to her mommy because she’s a lawyer who tells people what to do. She wants to be like mommy and mommy’s lawyer friends at work, who happen to be Black women. She wants to be like daddy: brilliant and caring towards everyone. She thinks it’s cool daddy has white skin and mommy has brown because it’s more colors in her world. Her favorite color is rainbow because it is all the colors – just like her world – all the colors – Black, White, and Brown.
My profession intertwines with America’s wealthy. I represent the wealthy, the ones with multigenerational legacies who rarely look like me, even less like my Black friends. This world of power holders certainly does not look like my daughter’s rainbow world.
The day Kareem signed her special book, I was among a small audience listening to him speak about the legacy of ignorance, of Latimer’s brilliance, and more. Most nodded in agreement and showed proper appreciation, but I was struck by the faraway yet fully engrossed twinkle in his eyes. There was an underlying passion in his words. He was exploring and living through each of these little known scientists and trailblazers, walking with them, at that very moment. Kareem was physically present with us, communicating, but mentally, he was in a different time and place, and he was taking us along for the ride.
I enjoyed the brief, exploratory, intellectual trip. Moments after the meeting, I was embarrassed that I knew so little. That encounter started a journey of exploring the why. As an immigrant, I had accepted that with my comparatively shorter time on this land, I have no right to be part of an American legacy, but now I questioned why. And it led me to another path – the history of Black America. Black Americans seemed to have accepted that they have no right to an American legacy, but they had been here since the genesis of the United States – so, why?
It is truly heartbreaking what a legacy of hopelessness can do. It is nearly impossible to rise to an unrelatable standard. It is insurmountable to overcome obstacles when forced to adopt role models, none of whom look like you. In a collection of designated role models, when some look like the child and others don’t, the child believes that appearance is not a factor in success. When everyone looks like the child, the child believes they belong and can succeed like them. When no one looks like the child, the child believes they are an outcast and loses hope in even trying.
Kareem is an intellectual. I think he would rather be an educator and influencer. He played basketball because no one would listen – he didn’t look like the leaders. He read on the sidelines, and that was his escape. Perhaps Kareem was lucky at least in that sense – he could read, and he wasn’t forced not to.
His eyes light up, and he relishes sharing the most minute specifics of historical figures – the little known ones – the ones who should not be in the shadows. I cannot remember those details as he does, but I remember the narrator’s joy in his stories being heard. He was speaking of his role models – the ones no one saw when he was a child. The ones we hear about now because Kareem beat the odds – he found hope where none was visible.
These stories, these figures, these seemingly overreaching attempts to bring them to light – this is building the legacy of hope. Overreaching only because it is necessary to fill that long and painful gap of silence and ignorance. Children, listen. These are your stories. This is how we make legacies. The best color in the world is rainbow – it’s all of them.
