Photo by British Library on Unsplash“White women tears” are a danger every Black man knows. It’s the second “Talk” our parents give us after school, on the couch or at the kitchen table. On the way back to the car, or from the driver’s seat—maintaining intense eye contact in the mirror—after an altercation in a mall, a post office, or a supermarket checkout line.
They tell us what to look for. The writing on the wall of suddenly ruddy faces. The puckered chin about to tremble. The slightly pursed lips sharply inhaling. The widening eyes ready to squint and squeeze forced drops before Her hysterical screaming starts. The broken-wing flapping calling as much attention as She can. It’s all merely the harbinger for a lynching by rope, official police business, or public opinion.
We know Christian Cooper and Anthony Broadwater got off easy. We’ve studied Emmett Till.
***
She told me She lives without regrets. Follows Her heart wherever it may take Her. That She’ll always do the risky, the scary thing—leave a city, a job, a marriage—in search of something better. She would rather be true to Her feelings—live a life of reckless, restless abandon—than remain stagnant and unhappy. She says She would make the same decisions, take the pains, all over again.
***
From first through fifth grade, I was the only Black kid in my class.
No matter what the history books say, bussing to the suburbs didn’t end in the 1970s. I woke up every morning at 5:30am for a groggy, hour-long, dimly lit bus ride. Every day forced to brave the white wilderness outside the tight circles of my civilized world. To trek beyond Blue Hill Ave., Dudley Street, Melnea Cass Blvd., American Legion Highway, Walk Hill Road. I traveled north and west, past I-95 where there be dragons.
My older siblings had walked these miles, handed down their shoes. Keep your thoughts, your emotions, your hands to yourself. You are not allowed the privilege of best intentions assumed. Your short kinky locks can’t be twisted around a finger. Welling eyes above a puckered chin means nothing if they’re not blue or green. Expect nothing but the corner, the time-out chair, in-school suspension, prison, a coffin, regardless of the facts. It doesn’t matter who was actually to blame. Who started it or why. Whose toy it was. Who hit who first. Who you were defending. What was said about your momma, your house, your shoes, your skin. Don’t ever, ever give them a reason…
The message was clear: keep all impulses at bay. Keep your shit bottled up—latched and locked, vouchsafed until you are alone or surrounded by the people you can trust. They did their best to teach me. I wasn’t the best student.
***
She told me to eat, pray, live, laugh, and love. To be #Blessed. To appropriate dances like no one was watching the Black girls on TikTok. To vision board the fridge and every wall, with inspirational quotes giving no credit to the Black women on Instagram. Stolen, like their hair, lips, ass, and tan.
As Paul Mooney said, “Everybody wants to be a nigger, but nobody wants to be a nigger.”
***
A young Brown woman—a former student of mine—once reminded me of how powerful united white women can be. The Temperance and Suffrage movements. Feminism and the Sexual Revolution. Take Back the Night and #MeToo. She then paused, looked at the back of her hands. Remembered whose voices were often excluded, whose stories were purposefully repressed.
***
I wrote a chapbook about the time a group of racist white women—cleverly dubbed “the CRT karens”—tried to cancel me. Ban me from leading a professional development on anti-racism for high school faculty, after conducting a poetry workshop with their students. It didn’t work, but they’ve since turned into a local coven of Moms for Liberty.
***
She told me I don’t understand what it’s like to be looked at, watched, judged, marginalized, treated like a second-class citizen, based on an immutable characteristic. She said I couldn’t ever understand Her rage.
Giancarlo Esposito said lashing out is “a white man’s luxury.” He was half right.
***
I sometimes wonder how nice it must be to be Her. How nice it must be to say, to scream, “I won’t apologize for my emotions!” without a hint of irony when being confronted with my own bad actions. How nice it must be to live a life where forgiveness is the expected response for all of my outbursts. How nice to be allowed the privilege of saying whatever bubbles up inside me. To believe that reality is saying whatever truth feels right in the moment, even if it will change upon more reflection. To make a mistake and believe that saying “sorry”—if I can even bring myself to say the words—changes anything. To be afforded the unassailable freedom to say, “that’s what I would have done” when accusing someone of something they did not in fact do. The blind, guileless, ubiquitous freedom to ask, “why does what actually happen matter to you so much?” when facts begin to crumble my fantasy. To live in a world where neither intent nor impact matters as much as my melanin count.
Of course I know I should aim for something more realistic, like being allowed the benefit of the doubt.
***
A young Asian woman—a former student of mine—once told me about her freshman year of college. She was having trouble with some girls on her floor. She initially liked them, but they kept expecting her to drop everything to care for them, to care about the drama they had created. She noted it was only the white girls who treated her like a bastardized geisha before asking me, “Wait. Was this a thing I failed to notice in high school?” I was silent as the memories began to play behind her eyes.
***
I was born late on a Saturday night. The delivery was rushed because my mother had to play piano and lead worship at church in the morning, my father had a sermon to preach, and I had to begin my decade of crawling under the church pews during the service. At least that’s the joke. But there was a foundation to start laying. They—my mother, my father, my grandmother, Mrs. Harris, Aunt Fay, Aunt Grace—all knew the road ahead. Were trying to keep me safe through Scripture.
Be like Jesus. | “Be humble and meek and patient.” | “Be holy.” | “As long as it is up to you, live in peace with everyone.” | “Turn the other cheek.” | “Give your shirt and your coat also.” | “Go the extra mile.” | “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.” | “Be angry, but do not sin.” | “Do not give the devil a foothold in your heart.” | “Do not let your good be spoken of as evil.” | “‘Vengeance is mine,’ says the Lord.” | “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.” | “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” | “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” | Self-control.
***
Sometimes I’m stupid.
I forget that I’m a narcissist who doesn't care about others and am solely dedicated to bringing pain to Her life and the life of my students who I am only pretending to care about to breed their dependence on me and that the real problem is the fact that I misheard what She never said that She now remembers saying but I misunderstood because I took out of context what She said was the context when She wasn’t trying to hurt me until She admits that Her intent was to hurt me but I should be over it by now because it’s my fault for giving Her what She asked for which I should have known was not what She really meant or needed despite what She explicitly told me.
She says I’m overreacting and She’s done talking about it now that She’s heard Her voice louder than mine. She’s said Her peace and won’t waste a single breath more on the matter because life is too short to not eat and pray and live and laugh and love and be #Blessed while dancing in Her kitchen with Her hands casting a spell upon the sky, now hugging Herself, now over Her ears.
But now She’s crying.
Or are those sirens?
