Not too long afterwards, Jamirah stopped me in the hallway at our freshman semiformal, to tell me how beautiful I looked. I thanked her; there was nothing else to say. By this time, I had found my outlet for my anger: writing. The allure of creating a new world in a better and more peaceful universe, where I could have new friends, was unexpected, and powerful.
Jamirah ended up leaving Williamstown after freshman year. Years later, I found her on Facebook and discovered that she’d moved back to Virginia and had two children. I could still sense her bravado in the way she pursed her lips for mirror selfies, and I smiled. I thought about reaching out to her to say hello, but I never went through with it because I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I could ask her for an apology, but then again, perhaps her returning my Dooney & Bourke purse and complimenting me on my looks was exactly that. Maybe I could apologize for looking down on her—I’d never said I did, but I knew she knew. Maybe I could wish her happiness, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted that for her either. The pain she inflicted on me hasn’t entirely gone away, just as I haven’t entirely forgiven myself for what I felt towards Jamirah and her crew. I’ve never wanted to return to high school, even in my memory. This is the only time I’ve written about it, and I did so because it felt important—this is what black femaleness is, or at least part of it; this is the violence we hurl at one another.
I didn’t want to be friends with Jamirah, and I’m sure she didn’t want to be friends with me. I suppose all I wanted to do was remind her that she did not break me. And maybe I would wind up thanking her because if she never teased me, then I would never have discovered my true passion for writing. I would also thank her for teaching me how to assert myself more because years later, once I went to college, I became more assertive. My behavior might not have totally matched Jamirah’s, but my passion was just as obvious, if not more so.
I am terrified by the thought of raising a black daughter who will also have to fend for herself. At times, I wonder how I managed to survive. Something happened to the black girl, the young black woman, that I was. I fell into the chasm between what I thought I was, what I wanted to be, and how others saw me. I still have not been able to reconcile these selves with much clarity, and fueled by the vestiges of this trauma, this poisonous place of insecurity and inflated self-importance, I write for that girl, for that young woman; I write for me now; and I write for you. Because a monkey is what I never was, but a black woman is what I had to become.
Growing up as a black woman is different. It prepares you to remember that you have to navigate two worlds. In our predominantly white world, you will never be white. I’d assumed that playing by its rules would insulate and distance me from other black girls; I’d depended on white supremacist tricks to make me feel as if I was better than them. Although I never confronted Jamirah with these lies, I feel just as reprehensible for housing them in my heart.
As an adult woman, I can feel Jamirah in my voice whenever I get mad. That agile cadence, that unparalleled wit, which renders my profanity as poetic as lines from a Shakespearean sonnet, rhythm and all. I know now where that anger, that primal need to make myself known, comes from. Belonging to the world of black women demands strength, on-your-feet wit, and aggression, because space for and by ourselves is small. You either assert yourself or learn to do so through humiliation, exposing who you really are: just another black girl fighting to exist.
After that lunchtime confrontation with Jamirah, I could never go back to being the black girl I once was. Her words corroded me, and that rust birthed a harder person, one able to see weaknesses in others and strategize about how to keep myself protected by any means necessary. But that corrosion also reminds me to check myself whenever I feel like my lighter skin color, or education, or behavior gives me some kind of inherent superiority over other black women. Basically, I needed her. I believe we needed each other.
This book is the balm to my soul and my gift to you. The desire to be the cheerleader while being seen as the monkey, the strain to be passive over the demand to be aggressive, the bullying, the conflict—all of this takes place on the battleground of being born both black and female. We cannot afford to believe that any part of ourselves gives us an edge over another. Ultimately, we are all fighting. I intend to fight those on the outside rather than those on the inside who are just as victimized as I am. I cannot divorce either part of my identity, and I recognize now, as I excavate my most painful memories, that to try to do so would be to understate their impact on my psychology.
There is equal value in race, gender, and class, for each trait refracts a different light onto another, which is why I write. Someone may have read these two anecdotes from my childhood and believe that this is what happens to all little girls. It’s true that we are all victims within a patriarchal society and we must fight. But the fight to empower all women under the veil of feminism has historically and presently centered white women. The word “all” switches to whiteness as the default—this is also why I write. When black women speak about themselves to those who are not black, somehow our interlocutors get offended that we dare speak about how both race and gender affect us. Somehow, our acknowledgment of our blackness and womanhood causes others’ brains to short-circuit because they have never been encouraged to focus on the type of person who has been dehumanized and neglected for centuries. The only way many can make sense of us is by looping us together with white women because their whiteness, their illumination, provides some kind of intellectual relief that erases black women all over again.
And to that I say this one-sided feminism is dead. This book is not about all women, but it is meant for all women, and men, and those who do not adhere to the gender binary. It is for you. You. Our blackness doesn’t distance us from other women; however, it does distinguish us, and this requires further understanding. At the same time, my story is not a one-size-fits-all tale about black womanhood. This book is not your resolution but the continuation of your education, or maybe the beginning. We deserve to be the center; our expansive stories are worthy of being magnified for all their ugliness, beauty, mundaneness, and grandeur. I will not baby you. Instead, I will force you to keep your eyes on me and, in turn, us, and see the seams of everyday life that you have been privileged to ignore but that have wrecked us. Some of us are still wrecked. I am admittedly so in some ways, which you will know about soon enough. But in many other ways, our community has been strengthened and that’s why I am here and you are continuing to read my words.
And to that I say, welcome.
Let us begin.
2
How to Be Docile
When your black girl child exits the womb and you hear her loud wailing, savor and remember it for as long as you can. That’s the loudest the world will ever allow her to be in a room where multiple people are present.
If she’s ugly, hide her face with a lace-trimmed handkerchief and tell passersby that she’s sleeping. If she’s beautiful, hand her off to strangers so that they can talk about how pretty her skin is or how many curls they can count on top of her small head.
When she’s approaching six or seven months, where it’s time for her to start speaking, teach her “Dada” first so that she knows that whatever comes out of her mouth is a symbol with a point of reference and that reference always returns to man.
Man is the establishment and system, and don’t ever let her forget it.
When that black girl child can learn to form full sentences, teach her early on never to ask questions, especially if the interlocutor is a man. She must learn submission early if she is to succeed in life. Don’t allow her eyebrows to raise when she sees the women in her community laugh and call the boys “fresh” when they question things. Smack her face if you must.
An emotionally inexpressive black girl child is one who keeps herself alive.