Thank you for this, Brother -- I FELT EVERY WORD!! I know the feeling, like the military members of your family, the freedom to just be me; the beauty of seeing/hearing/knowing different languages and being able to participate in the conversations! It's what led me to major in French in college and become a Russian linguist in the military.

The desire and ability to connect and communicate with others unlike me was intoxicating! And, as Mr. Baldwin noted, those white folks whose paths I crossed as I learned those languages -- also didn't need me to be a nigger.

I won't hold my breath that America will EVER commit to remembering, much less erect a monument to their failings like the Germans did (and The International African-American Museum in DC doesn't count for me! I'm 66 years young and NOW they're also building an African-American museum in my hometown of Charleston, SC -- that doesn't count for me either because it's just more dolla-dolla bills y'all for the city's coffers, rather than any kind of acknowledgemen or national reckoning of all the pain they have, and continue to cause in the city, IMHO).