People Should Be Accepted For Who They Are

                “I just don’t fit in and belong anywhere and I tend to pride myself on not fitting in or belonging”.  (Burton 63)  This quote from Bessie Head explains what she had to go through growing up in her lifetime.  Many of us don’t have to go through things like this.  Myself, I feel like I fit in places.  I feel like around my home town my family and I are just another local family.  Everyone gets along with all the other locals where I’m from.  But what if you weren’t allowed to live with your family?  What if you were rejected for who you actually were?  This is the life that Bessie head has to live. 

                In the novel A Question of Power by Bessie Head, she shows the effects of what it was like growing up without her family, and really not fitting in where she was.  First off her parents were different from other people’s parents.  Her father was a black stable worker, and her mother was from an upper-class Scottish family.  That really was the first step of problems for Bessie.  This was not normal where she is from.  The family that adopted her actually rejected her because of her dark skin color.  Where I’m from we have black people, white people, and brown people.  It isn’t considered weird or unnatural for a black person to be with a white person or any other combination of colors.  And if they conceive a child, congratulations to them.  It is nothing to be ashamed off.  But in South Africa apparently it was.  And this is what led to the unstableness of Bessie’s life. 

“Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world” (Burton, p.61).  Bessie did not have any of these frames.  She was living a frameless life.  She didn’t have any family or home, the only thing she had was her gender.  Her family wasn’t around for her; she wasn’t even considered part of them.  She was rejected by a family who had chosen to adopt her.  So she had to change her family to more fit in.  She had to move away from her home country to a neighboring country in an attempt to fit in.  One thing that didn’t have to be changed was her gender.  No matter what, she was going to be a woman.  Nothing was going to change that she was a woman.  This was her only frame.  She viewed the world from a woman’s perspective. 

                When I looked into Bessie’s lack of framework, I realized how lucky people are for the framework they have.  I never realized how proud I should be of the framework that I was born with.  I haven’t had to change my family, my hometown, or anything such as that.  I live in America, where it is ok for me to have white skin and some of my best friends to have dark skin.  That is becoming part of the American culture.  Slowly, but either way it is becoming more and more accepted.  I feel bad for someone like Bessie, who could be the same as the rest of us, but since she was not born in our time and in our country she did not have the same opportunities that we have.  Something that may sound simple like living with your own family could really kill a person if they weren’t able to have that privilege.  Bessie has helped me realize not only who I am, but how I should be proud of who I am.