Read My Feelings Podcast Episode 2: Affirmative Action | Reading "Invisible Woman" by @shantellewrites
Don’t read this
I’m writing for my own sake and it’d be better if no one read it. My friend started a convo on what it takes to be famous and I agree; you have to sell what other people would be afraid to share. If it’s authentic enough, it goes viral. We learned that with Cardi B, and trust me as a die hard Nicki fan it hurts to put her in my opening paragraph. But we finally got the inside tip. She didn’t care about our judgment. A year later I’m arguing with my daughter’s dad about how an ex-stripper is not a real role model. We used to sneak into strip clubs to catch a glimpse at their underworld. But now, the world wants to see it all.
I started writing because I keep blowing up angrily. I go on these rants and get in my head and then I end up not wanting to even be in this world trying. I talk myself into the pointlessness of living. So there’s a real problem. Not one that I’m gonna take medicine for. One that I’m going to think myself through. I think faster than I write so it always seems incomplete. I was going to talk about something else and my mind wanders to the next. They’re all connected but how can I tie them together on paper...the images that float so fluidly in my head. When I talk it out and try to explain how all of my memories and lessons are intertwined I just sound like a madwoman. How could you ever feel what I felt?
That need for true connectedness is never satisfied for me and so I see no real point in talking. It's horrible to shut down everyone else but I spend so much time listening and not being listened to. I’m writing this to get out my truth, whatever that is. I’m writing it because I fear my truth will be lost.
Road Rage
“Why does it matter if white people are faking it in the movement?” My daughter infuriates me when she tries to bring reason to my rant. I thought about describing the scene just now and for the first time I realized my daughter’s gotta be scared to drive with me. I’m driving 10 miles above the speed limit, when I’m normally a cautious driver, and I’m screaming and crying at the top of my lungs at invisible enemies. Enemies at work. Enemies at the private school I went to my whole life. Enemies in the hood city I grew up in.
They crash down on me. The feelings overwhelm me as I remember what they said. Things I can do nothing about in this car, while my daughter wonders if her life is at risk in the passenger seat. She wonders if her mom’s life is at risk since the person she loves most keeps saying she doesn’t want to be here anymore. And I see myself. And I know I’m at odds, but the insane genius in me knows that you can’t understand me if you can’t feel me. So I watch my self elicit pain.I tap into how people feel and I just want others to do the same. But I just end up causing them pain for their own story.
What I’m asking is impossible. I want to recreate it in a movie so you can feel it. I imagine myself directing scenes so you can feel bias in the 90s versus now. It’s 2020 and now apparently everyone has a clear vision. I don’t have a movie yet so I show my daughter old movies. I talk over her when she begs me to stop because I want her to understand the context. See how the only black people are servants and gangbangers? See how being gay was a complete no-no? Those jokes would never be allowed now. Yeah, girl, they said Alicia Silverstone was fat in this movie! If I could just get her to understand that I went to a school like Clueless and that the Kardashian body was not in style, then maybe she could understand the depths of what it felt like to be fat around white folks.
But I can’t make her feel the embarrassment when the coolest math teacher in the school (who was abnormally thin!) told me that I don’t look the same when I wear my uniform skirts shorter. I rolled my skirt at the top like the white girls, and nowhere close to as high, but she let me know my legs were too chunky for that. So now when I’m back home in my city getting off the train I don’t believe any black grownass man hanging out his window telling me I look cute in that skirt. And now I know that being number one in her class and being picked as a math olympian doesn’t make her like me. Her big smiles are saved for the skinny white girls that have also been to Hawaii. She looks like Barbie and her fiance's name is actually Ken.
Affirmative Action
Now that I have a teenager and as an adult I understand how important socialization is, I wonder how adults at my school didn’t care that no boy was ever going to like me. Didn’t they know that those relationships were important to growth? Didn’t they know I would never have a date to the dance? I got up the courage to ask my good friend. I’d gone to his house on a playdate and the only other person (I knew of) that was going to ask him out was the other black girl that had just joined the school. It was such a far reach that I’m laughing now at the thought that we weren’t mad at each other. We were still best friends and each of us was gonna take a shot. Airballs.
I’m going to add it here, though I feel it comes later, that that boy would later tell me I got into Tufts because of affirmative action. Not because I took 4 A.P. classes. Not because I sat first chair in the orchestra or sang in special chamber choirs and the a capella group. Not because I played sports all year round and earned my varsity sweater a year early. And certainly not because they saw the tenacity of a girl who could buss her ass to get to the train and city bus to sleep at a homeless shelter and still make high honors. Dude, you literally just had to go home and do your work. I’ve been to your comfy basement playroom, where you focused on claymation; the only talent I’ve known you to have in 13 years. I was the only black person of about 8 acceptances to Tufts in our grade. They just ain’t want you dude.
I’m going to add here that I had a blast at his Bar Mitzvah. I’m also going to add that when I posted about this on Facebook, without his name of course, he reached out to me and apologized. I’ve hurt people I’ve had to apologize to--two good friends in college. I hurt them because I was hurt. (Those fuck-ups need their own blog so stand by.) He was probably really upset he didn’t get into Tufts and I didn’t even want to go. I didn’t get into Columbia because I was honest about a suspension, and I was wait-listed at Johns Hopkins. I was already going to Tufts when they took me off, but I learned how tough Baltimore was when I visited, without watching The Wire. The sacrifice for me was that Johns Hopkins and Lafayette had Neuroscience programs, and Tufts was still calling it Biopsychology, like when I went to community college in high school.
It’s not black and white this racism thing lol. How funny that last sentence was. It’s gray. See I don’t hate him but I don’t trust him. He was an artist-type and never good at school or sports, but he naturally thought he was better than me. He would rather go to the dance alone than with a black girl. If he reached out to me to check in on how I was doing during the #BLM movement or if I saw him posting about it, it would be suspect. I’d be angry. I’d rant.
You don’t know my name
My other love-challenged guy friend was one of my best friends from kindergarten. The famous story is how he stood up for me against older girls who said my beautiful beaded braids looked like a Christmas tree. We don’t mention they were older black girls. They were well off black girls that grew up together, went to church together, and somehow all got into this private school where we were the only black kids. Thinking back, this was before Venus and Serena; they probably felt my beads were going to bring bad attention on them. It’s the worst thing when you’re trying to assimilate with white folks and someone new comes in being extra black. See cause they lump us together and one stands for all.
Part of tokenization is that there can only be one. There were 3 of them but they were united and strong as one and in the same grade. Who didn’t refer to all 3 of them at my school when talking about any one of them? Said their names in order: Kerise, Lisa, Michelle. What’s worse, the light-skinned one and I had basically the same name. I spent one year in high school with them and if all the teachers were now calling me her name, I wonder if they were calling her my name. There’s a serious feeling of betrayal when you’ve known white people for years and when a new black person comes they don’t know your name any more.[1]
Matter of fact 2 out of 3 were light-skinned so it was the dark one that called me a Christmas tree. Being the dark one, you’re bound to be angry. And that’s a deeper level of racism that I fear this movement won’t address. She was the darkest and the smartest to compensate. We both accomplished the most with our careers. We both had babies out of wedlock with men that didn’t really love us, in the middle of our studies. Her, in high school, but she graduated with high honors and the chemistry award. Me, in college, but I made it out with a position at the Yale School of Medicine before I even graduated. (What’s it called when your white friend gives you a hookup?)
We were walking at recess when Dustin stood up for me. We were so much smaller than them that I really thought he was brave. Phew, just had a thought, if he didn’t stand up for me I would’ve been uncomfortable braiding my hair black. I share me until it’s okay to be like me. And I try to teach kids they can be themselves and be smart. They started wearing braids to school. I felt kinda proud. I’m unapologetically self-righteous. I’ve never sacrificed myself to fit in. And the latter is a sacrifice because what does any human want but to fit in?
We continued those walks until we graduated. In fifth grade they became foursquare tournaments and in the middle grades they became soccer games where I was one of the only girls he picked to play on the winning side. By highschool, he only wanted my advice on who to date. Who did I think he could ask out? He was a little chunky, but guys never have to be perfect. He was just too nice and everyone wants a bad boy--the cool guy. We’d discuss nice girls that could be a fit for him. From the ones out of his league to the girl known for biting someone when she visited in second grade. He was browsing through the Netflix movies and at this point his eyes were burning and he’d watch anything. Anything but me. He NEVER considered me. To him it was just a given that I wasn’t even on the list of girls. I’m not a real girl here.
Invisible Woman
Non-human. Ugly. Fat. Black. Dark Black. Poor. Invisible. The opposite of the mantra in The Help. She teaches the little girl, “You is smart. You is kind. You is important.” I always cry when she’s listening to her say it the last time because I know the world won’t let her believe it. I’m driving the stretch of the highway and I catch my big forehead in the rearview mirror. I check the sideview mirror and wipe the oil off my forehead but the rest of my face is still oily. I put on some pink lipstick, just a little to lighten the darkness of my lips and then I put lip gloss on.
Listen to Shaina Healing Arts’ Affirmations For Black Girls FREE 4min Guided Meditation on Insight Timer
I hardly care about the highway lines as I bring out my phone camera. When I go through the pics I say this is the real ugly that everyone comes into contact with. if you were prettier or lighter, you would’ve made it further in life. I say once my boyfriend finds a light-skinned trophy, I’m done. You’ll never get married. If he saw this girl I’m looking at, he’d walk off with her right now. The other day I saw a pretty girl with a booty that was shaking so right at the mall. He would leave me for her I thought. The rest of my day was ruined; peppered with anxiety. No matter how much I work out, my ass will never jiggle like that. In fact, am I getting too skinny? Maybe he’ll really love me and use his money to help me get all the plastic surgery I want. I’m not mixed. I’m not always pretty in the face. Who’s gonna wanna wake up to me everyday? I guess that’s why they say you can’t love anyone until you love yourself.
The gays attach to the black struggle but to me it’s different. They’re fighting for their love. We’re fighting to get some. You can hide it. I can’t. It didn’t affect your credit score or where your children go to school. I’ve been heartbroken. It hurts, but I can live through it. But to be hopeless. To think that an oppressive system is bent on snuffing you out. For me, it put a wall in front of my purpose. This is in red cause it’s felt wrong since the day I wrote it, but I do want to capture my original feeling and wrongness at the same time. Here’s a link to understanding the black gay experience through fiction.
“The bitch look better red.” ~ Lil Wayne
I didn’t know my daughter was going to grow up so fast and I was going to look like her friend. I didn’t know I’d be forced to live through this again. They’re not ignoring me cause I’m old. We’re twins. I still have a phenomenal body. I work out hard to ensure this because my body is everything. They’re ignoring me and paying attention to my younger twin because she’s lighter. Because she’s taken my body and made it shine like gold. Because like Lil’ Wayne said, “The bitch look better red”. I’m the bitch and the world certainly thinks she looks better. I worry no man could be focused on me with her around. I don’t get into relationships because I don’t want to tempt anyone into pedophilia cause then I have to go to jail forever.
I planned her escape from darkness. It was pragmatic. I had a handsome light-skinned boy in love with me. Why would I get rid of a pretty baby? His family thought, why would he have a baby by an ugly dark skin girl? About 5 years ago, when my daughter was 10, I was driving his mom to do errands and when we left Dunkin Donuts and got in the car, she confirmed what I always felt. This mixed race woman put up for adoption by her white mom’s family, told me she now sees I’m beautiful. She said she saw how every man looked at me passing. Said she never saw I was pretty before. Damn, was that a compliment? My babyfather’s new babymama said the same thing when they invited me to a threesome. She didn’t think I was pretty at first but now I’m beautiful. So it’s confirmed, I’m never the girl that people think is pretty. At any time my man will upgrade to first-look pretty. How can I get there when I’m only getting older?
First-look pretty is light-skinned or very small features on a slim dark skin. Luckily, and this is sad, my nose and lips are small. But I’m too smart to have a smaller forehead lol (Rihanna light-skinned). I’ve seen and read too much to have smaller eyes. I’m too smart to get addicted to make-up to disguise myself. I’m just out here making sure my body stays fit and my hair stays done. Hair is so important that a bad hairstyle can drastically affect my life.
Weave makes doors open for you. Literally, men run to hold the door open for me. They may talk shit online, but they love it… a lot. The other day, a man begging for spare change outside still tried to pay for my juice. They give me free things for a smile. But not when I’m with a light skin. And not if I’m wearing my real hair and all my clothes. A long afro with a tight dress or crop top will bring standout attention. I’m taken in as exotic.Then the white guys look too, especially, and I mean instantly after Obama’s election.
People don’t surprise me; maybe in the future
And that's the problem with having to observe people. I know them. What they think is predictable and can be manipulated if I care to. If I don’t care, I will lose and sometimes I don’t even care about that. People are exhausting and predictable. Ignorance would be bliss for me. Instead I smoke to forget the pain they caused me and end up forgetting where my keys are. See the problem with drugs is they distract you from fixing the problem. It relieves the pain so they can hurt you again. It weakens ambition. It strengthens indifference. I remain invisible (no period, no end)
My friend suggested a movie during this movie game we play and the description on IMDB says “The film captures the trials and tribulations of young black youths in troubled London in the early eighties.”[2] So his work will capture the time. Well I need to as well, or they will erase it. I’ve learned as a mother that it’s impossible to explain how a time period felt. You can tell stories and say, “that wasn’t accepted in my day” but only you can feel it. Only you have the flashbacks when you’re talking or driving by newly developed areas. You remember what it was before. I point out the scarcity of black characters and how they die first in scary movies or only show up in the jail scene. We’ve been invisible for so long.
I remember how much harder it was. In contrast, my daughter remembers vacationing in Miami and going to see the movie Little, that a ten-year-old black girl wrote. You will resent your kid a little for not understanding and you fear they’ve missed out on the grit needed to make it at least as far as you have. But progress only happens when you try to understand them. Children are the future. They will see changes I won’t. I lived through the birth of the internet. I can type 80-plus words per minute, but my daughter dictates her papers and edits later. Technology is only technology if it was invented after you were born.
I refuse to share my stories at these new diversity meetings my company started. It’s almost salacious to them. They don’t feel what I feel in the end so was I just entertaining? Do I make them thankful, just as I feel when I watch devastation in third world countries? Out of guilt, they want to help. They want to distance themselves publicly from the dirty system that keeps them on top. Everyone is donating everywhere but won’t pay reparations.
When I traveled to my boss’s cold upstate New York estate, I finally got to drive in “The Mule” he’d bragged about; it turned out to be a Kawasaki truck. I love nature and status so I sat in the front seat as we drove, fast, through the icy woods, down to the rushing water, to sight an eagle high up in the trees. The freedom bird was a no-show but no one was disappointed. After dinner at a ritzy French restaurant in a quaint town, I took a walk with the white boy engineers back out to the eagle’s woods. I watched the white boy engineers smoke, declining to join because I had no cravings for my own occupational downfall. I asked Lee, the CEO’s close friend and assistant, how big the estate was. Blushing, he said, “40 acres[3]”.
[1] Key & Peele comedic satire exposing how ludicrous it would be to mispronounce white names. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO1oBfG59Xw
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080406/ The movie centers around Brindsley Forde's character Blue. He fronts a reggae sound system based in West London. The film captures the trials and tribulations of young black youths in troubled London in the early eighties.
[3] 40 acres and a mule: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule
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