It’s almost four in the morning and
I have to be awake for work in two and a half hours. It’s that time of night when
one debates whether or not to even try to sleep.My ex called our wedding off over four months
ago, almost five months now actually, and I’m awake at four in the
morning.I’m awake at four in the
morning recovering from an anxiety attack, tears still in my eyes.I’m awake at four in the morning and I’m
furious.I rarely discuss the breakup; I
walk around work busy, cheery, and peppy. I walk around smiling and ok, but I’m
not. It’s four in the morning and I’m weeping and furious.My chest hurts, my head hurts, my heart hurts,
and I’M AWAKE AT FOUR IN THE MORNING!
I’m awake at four in the morning
and I wonder why the burden of heartache falls on the woman. Why, although he
broke up with me, I am expected to still be there for him.I remember when I finally broke up with Tsy,
my ex before the ex-fiancé, and one day he asked, “why are you being so mean?”
What is mean to a man who ruined you? Is mean refusing mistreatment?I don’t know anymore.My heart doesn’t still hurt from Tsy. I
vaguely remember the pain and completely forgot the decent memories.I was once told love is the best remedy for a
broken heart, but I now think that another broken heart is the remedy.Another good heartbreak completely erases old
pain.It’s like when someone jokingly
offers to punch you in the arm in order to distract you from another pain.Although no one ever takes up that offer,
there’s truth to it.There’s a reality
that the heart has muscle memory.It
becomes a pro at being broken, pained, and ruined.You look forward to the numbness that
eventually comes.It’s really sad that
feeling nothing becomes the only alternative to pain. When the pain is this bad, this constantly
fighting the desire to die pain, happiness isn’t even an option, so you settle
for feeling nothing.The problem is when
the pain starts to subside, even slightly, the numbness wears off, and then
you’re awake at four in the morning recovering from a panic attack, recovering
from anxiety, recovering from pain, but not really recovering at all, just
waiting until it’s bad enough for the numbness to kick back in. Unfortunately
the heart isn’t a broken bone, it beats blood to the entire body, and when it’s
damaged, when trauma accompanies those beats, shards of glass pump through your
veins and you sit awake at four in the morning looking at a computer screen
because the numbness that would allow sleep won’t set in until you’re supposed
to be awake and it starts all over again.
It’s four in the morning and I’m
finally ready to talk about my latest failed relationship.I’m finally able to process, through the
tears, all of the mistakes I made and continue to make. It’s four in the morning
and I’m alone and I need to get out of here. My last relationship became a
cycle of pain and the expectation of things returning to “normal” no matter
what hurtful and hateful words were said.The expectation that it’s normal to yell at the one you claim to
love.The expectation that love is
supposed to be painful.I remember him
telling me that I need to love myself. Asking how I could love someone else
without loving myself.However, when I
think of the situation, it was a conundrum really.I couldn’t love myself when I was with him,
because he made me hate myself.I hated
who I was with him.I convinced myself
it was normal.It’s funny how we can
justify anything if we try hard enough, but at the end of the day I hated
myself.I hated that I allowed life to
just happen to me, that I became a passive observer to my life.I’m not trying to demonize my ex because,
truth is, people only do what you allow and I allowed myself to become someone
I hated.I allowed myself to become
someone who normalized toxicity. I became someone who went into a coma instead
of waking up to realize what was happening.When I finally woke up, over four months later, I’m still awake at four
in the morning.
He ruined me.He controlled me.He manipulated me and I let him. He thinks he
still can but he can’t.Things aren’t
normal anymore.This isn’t normal
anymore.I don’t want to have small talk
with him. I don’t care about his life and I don’t want his favors.He ruined me and I am getting far far away.Although he ruined me, I’m no longer a
passive observer in my life. I’m not allowing that.Instead, I am going to become someone I love
again and I can’t do that with him in my life.We’re not friends.I’m ruined,
but not destroyed.To a certain extent,
I embrace the pain because it means that I’m awake, I’m not numb.I’m not finished, there’s still so much I
need to do without him.I want to make a
clean break; I need to make a clean break. In the meantime, I’m awake at four
in the morning recovering. I’m recovering.
I recently started writing my dissertation and all I hear in my head is
“finally,” “took you long enough,”and “what’s the point, it’ll be wrong
anyway.” Hence, writing physically and emotionally hurts. Many days I
stare at my computer screen and question myself, everything I’ve
produced, and everything I have yet to produce. Did I research correctly;
have I been in the field too long, did I ask the right questions? But
the main question that continues to haunt me is, why do I think I belong
here? That’s the one that replays over and over, and no, this isn’t
some elaborate self-pitying party I’ve created in my mind. This is based
on a graduate career marked by racism, blatant and subtle, attacks on
my credential, and being accused of being spoon-fed, all of which
insinuate that 1) I don’t belong here and 2) the only reason I am here
is because I got way more help than my white counterparts.
I’m still the lone Black graduate student in the department. Well, as
far as I know because, as I said earlier, I’ve been in the field for
over a year now. These years of being questioned in more ways than I can
list, led to self-isolation from everything graduate school represented
while in the field. I contacted my adviser maybe once every other
month, sharing the very least with her as possible. By doing this I
subconsciously hoped when I start sending chapters the accusation of
being spoon-fed would have no basis. Unfortunately, I realize an
additional basis for those who constantly question my place in academia
is not necessary because the basis is my melanin. Either way, I felt
that I had to show I could do this on my own. Forget having a chronic
illness and being in a life changing car accident, I had to do it alone,
while carrying the expectations of other Black graduate students and
the doubts of my white counterparts.
I’m sure
many have written me off as another phantom Black graduate student who
leaves for fieldwork and drops off the face of the earth. They wouldn’t
be wrong, except to the fact that I dropped off the face of the earth
when I went to the field. The truth is, I dropped off the face of the
earth my fourth year of graduate school. I was tired; tired of
constantly defending my existence and research, tired of hearing racist
comments exemplified by people thinking I was too stupid to realize how
racist the comments were and that they were directed at me, tired of
the expectation that I would never finish my degree, tired of being the
only one,tired of biting my tongue. Biting my tongue became a ritual:
in meetings with committee members, in the student lounge, and in
conversations with other students.
My tongue was
swollen, bloody, and hanging from a thread before I decided to just
stop. I only stepped on campus when I absolutely necessary, for years my
office mate probably thought I didn’t exist. I didn’t go to any
“diversity” activities, because I was always the token,the evidence that
the department was diverse, at the expense of that lone student who
became more of a symbol than a person. I just stopped. Slowly my tongue
healed, but the scar is there and that scar continues to haunt my
writing. It throbs when I get ready to write and replays all of my
fears. It’s hard to write in extreme pain and one hundred pound weights
on your shoulders.Often I may force out a paragraph or more on good
days, but I always have to stop because the voices of those who
disapprove have become my own. I’m telling myself, “you’re not good
enough, why are you writing, Black people aren’t smart enough and you’re
at the bottom of that barrel.” Feeling self-dejected, I stop. How can I
write about a Black community empowering themselves in the midst of
disaster when I feel so dis-empowered? Nothing will be authentic. My
words will be exactly what they expect, not worthy of this cannon they
guard so fiercely. Even 700miles away I’m still that shy little black
girl with blood dripping out the corner of her mouth.
I recently started writing my dissertation and all I hear in my head is
“finally,” “took you long enough,”Writing is increasingly physically
and emotionally painful. Many days I stare at my computer screen while
questioning myself, everything I’ve produced, and everything I have yet
to produce until the tears distort the screen too much. Why does it feel
like I don’t belong here? The answer is, because I don’t. Realizing
this, I get back to writing and the process starts all over.
I am sitting, here listening to
Mrs. Keys sing about heartbreak and recovery.
It is ironic, the ways in which mainstream music and media tends to focus
on one of two things, sex or heartbreak.
Very few outlets focus on rebuilding.
This, I believe, is very representative of larger gender and
relationship trends of our society. As a Black woman, I am speaking from my
position with my lens; however, these reflections are applicable to broader patterns.
A few months back I posted a blog
entitled It Takes Work, in which I
discussed how, in a society of instant gratification, we do not feel that
relationships take work. Instead, we want things to be effortless. Although I still adhere to this, to a certain
extent, I feel that there is a fine line.
The difference lies in foundation. A sturdy foundation may give a little
under pressure, but can be saved, mended, and possibly made even stronger. Whereas, a weak foundation completely
crumbles under pressure, regardless of how much work you put in to preventing
its destruction or preserving the wreckage.
In other words, some relationships will survive, while others are
Babylon. Enough said.
Getting out of Babylon, in the
knick of time, I look back on why people, specifically women, choose to stay in
bad relationships. “Western” society
tends to condition women to be self-sacrificing, people pleasers. I’ll give you an example. One evening I picked up my now ex to spend
some quality time together. He had different ideas on how the night would go
however. We get to the house and he goes straight to the front room and turns
on the game. I have AT&T U-Verse, so I can watch up to three HD shows at a
time. However, if you are taping two things on DVR, you can only watch HD on
one receiver. I had been watching a show
and I must have had a recording scheduled that blocked my front room
television.
My now ex comes in to the room
upset, exclaiming that there is something wrong with the TV. Not wanting to have to explain things and
ultimately feeling guilty, for who knows why, I simply responded, fine I will
turn my TV off and sit in here in the dark.
I thought he would hear how crazy that sounds, especially since this is
my house, I pay my bills, and used my gas to get him from his house in the
first place, but you know what they say happens when you assume… He looks at
me, says ok and goes back into the front room to watch the game. This example
is just one of the many as to a missing or unstable foundation. One member of a
relationship cannot be more invested than the other, if this is the case, one
person is trying to make it work, while the other is reaping the benefits,
creating a false hierarchy.
I am not going to go into extreme
details on the deterioration of a relationship, turn on the radio or TV at any
given time and you have a plethora of examples of this. I want to, instead, focus on rebuilding, a
process I am currently in. As I said in
the opening, we are fixated on sex or heartbreak in this society, but no one
focuses on the in between. I cannot help but to wonder if this is because we do
not take the time to heal in between.
Although scars can never completely reconcile, they can be studied and
nurtured. Are we encouraging this or are
we jumping from one relationship to the next without reflection and self-evaluation?
Chrisette Michele has a song called
Goodbye Game. In this song she narrates a break up and
epiphany of a woman, asserting words of strength and wisdom, such as:
What's up with this game?
Why am I so forgiving?
Why am I always checking for these fools?
If he aint hearing none of home girl's rules.
Why do I play?
I’d rather play alone.
This reads as a woman who is realizing that the foundation is unstable;
it truly takes two to make a relationship work, but just one to break it. These types of questions, as illustrated by
Michele, are essential for the rebuilding process. Although Michele does provide context, the
purpose of the prose is not to dog a man, but to reflect on the woman’s own
actions by learning to love herself and her own company, as illustrated in the
line “I’d rather play alone.”
I’ve come to realize, through
conversations with friends, family, and colleagues that women often date
someone just to be in a
relationship. I am, likewise, guilty of
this. I find myself staying with men in
hopes of love, affection, and the emotions I never received from a male figure
growing up. My father was absent and my
brother, although very close as young children, was in and out of the house by
the time I was eleven. Because of this,
I didn’t have an example, so I made my own through media representations and my
peers. This landed me in relationships
with men who never recognized my worth, so I, therefore, concluded I was
lacking. However, I love how Michele takes the time to realize her worth and
love her own company, explaining how she is no longer going to play the fool,
and instead she is going to “play my [her] hero, you gon be a zero.” In a
society where the damsel in distress narrative is pervasive, it is nice to have
a woman being her own hero.
None of these lessons can be
learned without reflection. If we take
our scars and baggage to the next, we still wince at phantom pains in the chest
and fears of distress that may actually push the next guy away. There is
nothing wrong with being alone, if we weren’t so terrified of loneliness, we
may realize the power and strength in it.
It may be cliché, but you honestly can’t love someone else until you
love yourself. So take some time, lick
your wounds, and learn to love yourself.
As Alicia Keys said, “my soul has returned, so I call it a lesson
learned.” It is time for us to truly learn these lessons.
Vulnerability Due to Intersecting Identities in Academia
I remember discussing
with a mentor the position of people of color in academia, especially at a
predominantly white research institution and discipline, and the expectation to
always play politics, manipulate professionalism, and constantly
self-censor. When someone questions my credential
instead of my paper I bite my tongue. When
someone makes me the subject, as opposed to the researcher, I bite my
tongue. When I’m constantly expected to
represent diversity, as the ONLY Black person in my department, I bite my
tongue. I want to say, “no I cannot, contrary to your racist ideologies, I do
not represent everything Black, please just let me do my research,” but then
I’m the angry Black woman, so I bite my tongue.
It always amazes me how one can have a 28-hour day and still harvest extreme
feelings of emptiness and exhaustion from the simple, yet often essential, act
of biting ones tongue. When I have to read the “theory” of the discipline, frequented
with adjectives such as “long-faced negroes,” I bite my tongue. When I read
something that offends me so much I hold back tears, I bite my tongue. When I
want to scream from the rooftops, “NO MY HAIR IS NOT A TOPIC OF DISCUSSION AND
YOU CANNOT TOUCH IT,” I bite my tongue and smile with, as Smokey Robinson said,
tears from a clown.
I remember an
episode of A Different World, Mammy Dearest, where Whitley Gilbert wanted to
highlight the complexities of the Mammy caricature. Kim vehemently opposed, however, Mr. Gaines
told Kim, and I’m paraphrasing, she [mammy] is not smiling because she is
happy. In reality, she is smiling
because she knows how valuable she is on inside. This is her secret and gift. The show ended with a beautiful performance
elaborating this concept. My question is when does this gift stop being a
secret? I bite my tongue.
As a Black woman
in academia, disciplined by a field dominated by white folks who gaze and
“other,” I often become the subject in gatherings. This leads me to self-isolate
and then I am seen as not being serious about my work, when in reality I’m
trying, often unsuccessfully, not to go insane. I bite my tongue. I constantly
censor my thoughts, to the point that I do not realize that I am performing in
such a way until my mouth starts to bleed. My tongue is a thread from being
bitten off and permanently silencing me. I choke. The blood starts to gush and
I know, if not handled, I will not need to bite my tongue. I will, instead, become
a representation, a museum artifact, seen and not heard, but there when needed
to show “diversity.”
Being a forced
representative makes me a statistic. Inclusion inherently excludes. I remember seeing Zora Neale Hurston posing
as a museum exhibit, and the significance didn’t sink in until I realized, and
lived, many of the things that forced my sister (in my head) out of academia. I
am forced to ignore my other needs, and my life is placed on hold. I wait to
love, wait to live, wait to be me and with every growing day, I am anticipating
tomorrow, next month, next year. I bite my tongue.
In the exam
stage, I’m now expected to produce “stuff,” as one of my committee members
calls it. This stuff requires a “voice,” but where does this voice come from
when I barely have a tongue. A muscle that I have ignored, neglected, and
damaged to the extent of almost losing it. One of my committee members said to
me, “I can tell from your work what you like, but what do not you like? There’s
no critique.” I would have responded, but my tongue, from its damaged state,
would not form words. The blood was too
heavy and I choked back tears. It’s hard to critique when the overt policing in
the academy disciplined me to self-police, losing the ability to respond.
Tis the game of
academia, the first three years we tell you what the politics of the discipline
are, in this case, being the majority and “othering” the field population. If you cannot become white, try your best to
conform, but the consequences of such lead you to be voiceless, soul-less, lifeless,
and numb until you don ot even remember what it was you want to do with this
discipline, and I mean that in the literal sense, in the first place.
I have to take
my agency back and live by the words of the often forgotten Zora Neale Hurston,
“sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but
it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any
deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.”
At the end of
the day, I have to heal my tongue, find my voice, and reclaim my worth because
Queen Latifah said it best when she said, “it’s just another day.” I will never stop being oppressed, silenced,
and disciplined, but I can start exerting my agency, voice, and choice. I mend my
tongue. I heal my tongue. I love my tongue. I reclaim my voice.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Wow, this is brillant! Really captures the coonery of the original.
Hmm, second degree murder, guess we’re still happy with crumbs. Let’s look, for a moment, at the criteria for a first degree vs. a second degree charge: Murder in the first degree is the willful, deliberate, malicious and premeditated killing of a human being. Murder in thesecond degree is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice, without premeditation and deliberation.
Correct me if I’m wrong, I only do legal studies and do not, in fact, practice law (thankfully), but given Zimmerman’s track record of calling 911 on things such as stray dogs and five year old lil black boys, he is clearly maintaining an overzealous nature and false hero perception. In the 911 call that led to his murder of Trayvon, when told NOT TO FOLLOW TRAYVON, he does so anyway and makes the conscious decision to shoot him, although Trayvon posed no serious threat seeing that he was unarmed, unless of course you count iced tea and skittles. Trayvon was also actually shot in the BACK, meaning he was either trying to flee or in submission. Zimmerman using his gun for his self-appointed “job,” and deciding to shot him in the chest, again through the back, and not the leg or some other non-mortal wound shows intent to kill.
If the tables were turned, I am confident that it would be first degree murder. A Black man shooting and killing an unarmed white teen. He would be heading to the electric chair right now. Shoot, Howard Morgan, and there was PROOF his gun never discharged, managed to have enough evidence for attempted murder AFTER being shot 28 times. Going back further, there was NO evidence in the George Junius Stinney Jr. trial and he, at 14, was sent to the electric chair. Second degree doesn’t fit the Zimmerman case and if they don’t have enough evidence, it is based a dual criminal injustice system founded in dangerous, racist ideologies, and not actual forensics and evidence of the case. Remember, the first police of Black communities were slave catchers, which outlines where we stood and continue to stand in the eyes of the law.
So, why are we counting a second degree charge as a victory? Call me a cynic but I really don’t think anything will come out of this. If Howard Morgan is sitting in prison for 40 years, yet Zimmerman is still walking free, I don’t care what reports claim, his own ex-lawyers stated that he was no longer in the state of Florida as recent as TODAY, I have no faith in the criminal injustice system. It’s time for us to handle our own streets.
