My 20 years as a Black woman in the Marines help me defend the weak from the strong

I understand how it feels to live in fear. I have suffered the debilitating effects of its distress, anxiety, scorn and shame. As a biracial child, I feared the incessant teasing and bullying from family and peers. And though I choose to believe my tormentors were ignorant to the harm they caused, that fear left me questioning my place in the world.

Throughout my adolescent years, I felt no acceptance within a white culture that weaponized power and privilege against my Blackness. Nor did I find welcome in a Black culture that rejected my fair skin, less-textured hair and white mother, considering them a silent betrayal of a rich history I was not fully a part of — a history I did not know then, and one that was not included in the standard curricula at the schools I attended.

When I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps as a naive 17-year-old girl, the fear did not disappear. Rather, it was exacerbated by an environment too often hostile to women and people of color. Racism and sexism in the Marine Corps were as routine as morning formation. I was called the N-word, “monkey Marine,” “W.M.” (walking mattress) and told to choose between being a “whore” (a female Marine who refused male sexual advances) or a “bitch” (a lesbian) — these abuses meant it was just an average day, as expected as the chow hall, physical training and uniform inspections.

Like other female Marines I served alongside, every promotion I received was tainted by whispers from male counterparts that I must have bartered sexual favors for elevated rank. I began to understand that this atmosphere of sexism, racism, misogyny and homophobia was a microcosm of our larger society.

During my 20 years of service to my country, I was blessed to meet and call friends men of integrity who protected and stood up for me, assisting in my development as a Marine and a professional. However, I still often feared working in an environment hostile to women — an environment so anti-female that I remember being told during my first pregnancy, “If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a baby, they would have issued you one with your boots and rifle in boot camp.”

One day, I decided to stop living in fear and embrace all of who I am as a Black woman. That was the day I began finally to live free. But despite my self-liberation, this liberty did not translate to freedom from the constraints my race and gender guaranteed me in society. When I decided to run for the Lee’s Summit Board of Education, those constraints were not lost on me.

But I understood how important representation is to children, especially those from historically marginalized communities. And while my duties after being elected to the board are to advocate for all children, my Marine Corps values kindled within me an unshakable desire to defend the weak against the strong, and never to leave anyone behind.

When I survey the present landscape of the country I love, the one I spent my life defending, I see incredible possibility — but also tremendous pain. Witnessing unarmed Black men and women die at the hands of police breaks my heart. I fear for my own children. I dread receiving a phone call that will trigger funeral arrangements and grief that cannot be undone.

The recent letters from children in my own community demanding that leaders like myself transform school districts so that racial hatred, prejudice, discrimination, sexism, homophobia, lack of diversity, xenophobia and outright indifference to experiences that are not white experiences represent courageous calls to action that must not be ignored.

Our children should not be required to live in constant fear inside our schools to survive in America. Our leaders have a duty to transform institutions that have historically devalued lives that are not white. I join in this commitment to create a world fit for all to live in peace.

Megan Marshall is the first African American elected to the Lee’s Summit Board of Education.

This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM.