On being a unicorn…

We sat in a restaurant at a table full of beautiful and talented black women. The group had gotten off track.  We had a side conversation. And then she called me a unicorn. Told me that my relationship with my mother was complex and that for my own wholeness, I needed to keep working on it.

She read my life. Isn’t that funny? How the things we leave unsaid become the things we most need to talk about? I got home that night and begin to reflect. I thought about unicorns and my childhood.

A childhood I don’t remember much of. I wonder if that is a function of wishing to forget. The more you forget the less the you remember. But I recall that I had a book.. One of my favorite books. And it was called, Alexandra and the Vanishing Unicorns. (My middle name is Alexandra)

And in the book she was the last unicorn. All the others were disappearing and she was the only one left.

I can remember reading the book over and over and always thinking I am her.

I had never shared this with this friend or anyone else for that matter but she read my life. Read what I didn't say about my mother and about myself and in doing so made me recall things that at first glance are unimportant. Sometimes its the unimportant, the unloaded, the unassuming parts of life that carry the most weight. Those small details that comprise a life that one day come back around to reclaim you. 

And I spent all day the next day looking for this book and trying to reclaim parts of my childhood. I decided I needed to write this. I needed to talk about being a unicorn born to a mother who doesn’t like magic, who hasn’t ever had space for discovering the unicorn in her.

And this is a poem for her: 

I wonder if you knew you were magic

Myth and folklore

The stuff of angels and dust

Would you walk different?

Lift your head higher

Would you stop looking for life?

In dry places

And make water run from your own well

Would you love the magic in me?

I know DC was not nice to you

And so you never left

Never dreamt for

Aimless hills

 And mountaintops

You settled for cracking the open sky

To rain down on me

Mother you are shame and perfections

Beauty and hurt

All things at all times

And even though you call that making it

I call it magic

I have tried to run as far from your image as possible

But your shadows show up in my

Darkness

Reminding me that I am light

And for that I am eternally grateful

I know you wanted a daughter that was normal

That wanted a picket fence

A stable job

A college degree

A car

All the markings of middle class we never had

And what you got was me

Maybe your magic

Can only produce unicorns

Maybe masterpieces can only produce

One of kind masterpieces

And maybe that kind of genius

Makes you drink or create

Drug or reach for the moon

And so you created space for me

To be Alexandra the only one left

Mother and daughter relationships are complex and often the place where generational trauma is passed on. I have heard it said mothers love their sons and raise their daughters. I think as a community we have to begin to heal and talk in earnest about legacy and how it gets passed down.

So thank you to my friend who sparked in me a desire to see my mother as human and to begin to heal from the 20 plus years of baggage I have carried around.

When "art" imitates societal constructs of black femininity

"De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.”  

                    Zora Neale Hurston through Janie Crawford 

I wasn’t going to write about this photo. It seemed to much like what would be expected of me.

It seemed like by dignifying the picture with a second thought, much less a written response I would do what white people (namely white women) expect of me. I would be reacting to the disrespect once again of black bodies instead of engaging in a productive dialogue about how to build a world where I too am allowed to "BE". 

But alas here we are, I am sitting at the counter of one of my friends kitchen and writing. Because micro and macro racism is different. Because Intent and Impact are different. Because we need to move beyond the conversations to racial equity work. Because I am learning to love myself and my sisters when no one else will. Because validation is beyond the point. Because if all I am is a backdrop and a prop then the world is missing out and white supremacy wins in our hearts and minds. 

When I saw this picture all I initially thought was Sarah Bartman. I was focused on the wrong thing though.  My gaze was upon the white woman and not the sister in the photo. So looked again and this time when I saw her, I thought about her hopes, her dreams, her aspirations and my own. I had to adjust my vision to see. 

The Russian editor says the picture was taken out of context. I agree with her. It was taken out of context and that context is the social, political, economic context that black women find themselves in present day 2014. 

The lady apologized for her intention but what about the impact? The impact of being reduced to a chair, a scantily clad and exploited body and always seeing your image reflected as lesser than to the gentile, sweet and always protected white woman? The impact of that will never be fully known. More importantly, every time racism is confronted the response is always one that focuses on intent instead of impact. We can no longer be quiet about race, our issues, our discourse has to use race explicit language. To not use it does us a disservice. 

I understand that inter personally not all white woman view black woman as chairs but I also know institutionally and structurally we are often used as furniture, inconvenient backdrops to the story line about their lives. 

We are chairs when white feminist refuse to acknowledge us

We are chairs when black men continue to objective and devalue us

We are chairs when white men call us angry and ghetto

We are chairs when society continues to ignore us and reduce us to the sums of our experience. But even in the midst of that we, we are beautiful and complex and we hold the weight of our lived experiences with grace and rise from the ashes stronger and more resilient. 

As always, black women have picked themselves us out of the shadows and continued to determine who we are for ourselves. But this photo and the woman in it can't just picked up and dusted off, forgotten until the next wave of assaults to our humanity. 

We must organize and demand our place. We must continue the conversation and begin to support magazines and books and images that help us in our journey to self-determination and liberation. 

SO the sister who is in this picture becomes me and I become her. Our stories become linked. Together we become a masterpiece. A picture of art that reflects our true essence. A picture of hope and courage. A picture of compassion and connection. A picture from the front lines of life and beautiful magic that no matter what won't go away quietly. 

And we all know: 

“I am my best work - a series of road maps, reports, recipes, doodles, and prayers from the front lines.” Audre Lorde

What Beyonce Teaches Us and Female Friendship

“The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.”

― Toni Morrison, Sula

The critics have spoken. They have debated and pontificated. They have analyzed and weighed in. Beyonce- feminist or not? Beyonce – Self-actualized woman living the dream or pawn in the capitalist, patriarchal society we find our ourselves in?

My question is: what if she is both?

What if she lives in the tension of the world as it should be: where we as woman can be who we choose to be while operating in the world as it is where we are scrutinized for every decision, every choice, every mistake and misstep.

And what if this discourse is a distraction from the reality? Beyonce leads a life many of us only can dream of, and the reason we, her loyal fans flock to her faithfully is because we too want to believe that we can have whatever we want. If it’s a husband or not. A successful career or not. Beyonce for many of us represents the ability to choose. To chart our own life’s path free from the gaze of a society that tells us we can do it how we want to, but then ostracizes our choices.

But more than that for me is something bigger I want to process with you all. I watched Toni Morrison and Junot Diaz at the NYPL. Toni Morrison and Beyonce what do they have in common? Well Junot Diaz posed a question to her about her legendary book Sula and the lens or commentary it provided the world about Female Friendships.

I have read Sula several times and in one poignant moment that remains my favorite part is when they describe the connectedness of the girls. I believe they talk about two heads, one body. This is intimacy here people, one we don’t often see depicted in popular culture. Sula sleeping with Jude does not shatter that connectedness, it survives despite it. Reconciliation is not the aim; it is the realization that friendship and sisterhood transcends all of the mess of life and the muck of romantic relationships. In the end, as TLC put it “what about your friends”?

Female friendship in the novel is about an emotional intimacy that even male dominated culture and infidelity cannot destroy. It defines the construct of women as competition and catty vying for the attention of a man.  And although it doesn’t ever repair itself we know Nel and Sula grieve the lost of each other.

The conversation about Beyonce being a feminist is a distracting one. It gets us off course with the real discussion we should be having. How have we as woman been indoctrinated to critique and compete with one another? (I realize this may be a generalization) How does this lack of reverence for female friendship hinder us from addressing patriarchy and white supremacy head on?

I think the real feminist act would be to stop squabbling over who’s in and whose out and begin the process of unlearning that which has continued to keep many of us in shackles. We define ourselves in proximity to men, in proximity to power and if don’t do this than we have arrived and we sit back, rest on our morals and become the judge about how pro-woman progressive everyone else is.

What is the revolutionary act is to allow each woman to choose for herself her own course and then to love her anyway?

More than whether or not she is a feminist she is self-proclaimed woman and today that is good enough for me.

Beyonce teaches us that female friendship is the crux of the movement. We liberate ourselves, we get free on our own and whether or not someone measures up or looks at the world just like us, we choose to love.  I am not naïve to the structural and systemic ways, which women are locked out, but I think we need to ask, is how to we use love and freedom and choice to widen the table and begin the work?

So in the words of Toni Morrison “She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be - for a woman. And that no one would ever be that version of herself, which she sought to reach out to and touch with an ungloved hand. There was only her own mood and whim, and if that was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was.”

― Toni Morrison, Sula

Let others become intimate with their own selves. Labels don’t last. Loving the reflection of yourself you see in others, Deciding to be a friend is the most radical act we can take. And the first step. No movement work had ever been done absent of love for people and a desire to translate that love into the work of justice. 

New Rules

Several months ago, Jay Z embarked on a campaign to release his newest album, Magna Carta Holy Grail. This clever marketing ploy was designed to give access to some prior to the official release date of the new album. Others would have to purchase the album the same old way. I want to make this clear Jay Z was getting paid either way (okayyyy) and this is an oversimplification of the process because Jay Z is not the point of this blog post.

Around this time I was also embarking on a campaign. I was starting a new job and I was finding myself in more situations than I would have liked where I had to explain my personal politics in hostile, unwelcoming settings. I have always been clear about where my accountability lay and I explain it as an onion... (which poor black women girl child at the center and everyone else expanding from there).   I was spending more time talking about then being with people and I was tired. I felt like I had to keep going and that I couldn't ask for help.  The level of despair I felt was new territory for me. The systems seem to be winning and I had no glimpses of hope, no moments of celebrations. The personal and the professional seemed awry and I felt disingenuous, unauthentic and that I was not worthy. Worst of all, I felt I had to "hold it all together", or coded language that means I wasn't allowed to break down.

And I was confused about why when I explained that folks reacted as if I was a savage... unacceptable of understanding the nuisances and complexities of life, of love or friendship or race or work. I see now that a black woman being open about her struggles and love and weakness is a no-no in this society. The construct of sister souljah the strong black woman with a quick tongue and all the answers for everyone in her life is not something white supremacy wants us to dismantle. If we do, well it dispels the myths about infighting and hating each other. It makes an opening in the cracks of arguments about the depths and widths of our attitudes. We start to have humanity. We become more complex beings who love their families and their partners, who work and love and learn and get to just BE. God knows People hate to let a black women just be..

So I started thinking about new rules for black women in this world. And I started texting a friend of mine about it and I said I want to write some new rules for black women. Some new norms that we operate from. And then I started writing them, but I never shared them. Probably because I’m scary and I didn't want to offend or impose my thoughts on other people but some other things happened. The universe or God started me on a trajectory where I can no longer ignore the urge or suppress the need to contribute to the public discourse on race and class and gender. I’m not evolved in my thinking. My language is not complex but my mind works and as long as that’s the case I will share. 

So thank you Tanya Fields for replying to me after I shared my support of you on twitter. 

And Thank you Reina Jarmon who wrote #Blackgirlsarefromthefuture because we make the shit we believe in and hung out with me in a bar on a random Friday not by accident. 

And Marcus Lee and Jamal Lewis who embody solidarity and politicize me 

And Thank you Jess Solomon whose Facebook post this morning about building new worlds made me get off my ass this morning and try to put on paper that which is in my head. 

These are the first new rules… 

·      Vulnerability is asset not a deficit #newrules 

·      Loving self first is imperative and not selfish #newrules

·      The only person I have to hold it all together for is myself #newrules

·      Love with my whole heart #newrules 

·      Walk away form relationships that are toxic and don't allow me be my most authentic self #newrules

·      Don’t be ashamed to ask for what you want and need #newrules

·      Walk in purpose #newrules

·      If it isn’t there create it #newrules