nonfic by taylor simone haynes
An American Tale
And that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength. - Audre Lorde
The Black girl’s heart is as sturdy and wise as the trunk of a Southern magnolia. Not even a diamond can break the skin of the bark. She has cultivated this heart of malleable iron through her ancestors’ legacy of happiness and joy. The Black girl learns to stay grateful despite the brutality of the blood that courses her small veins. And once she reads a novel on slavery, she will always question the look of a White face. She will think to herself: So, this could have been my enslaver.
As she grows into a young flower, her petals will not bloom open until she can find a stable source of light. It’s funny because her daddy always tells her to do her research, to always ask questions. Car rides home from her future university will be filled with “I was young, too” and “I went through all the same things you’re going through.” Yet, that same daddy is the biggest fool she knows. Her mama, too, but she would hate to admit it.
The union of this girl’s unwilling parents birthed her into a stone sea of Whiteness called Hinsdale. It is easier for her to remember the good times than what is difficult, so she utilizes a technique of intentional denial to save herself from the truth. Like many ideas in her life, she internalizes this one from a book called Beloved. Each day in a majority White high school weighs heavy on her insides. She longs for the friendships and peers that look like her, and she would do anything to realize this dream. The young girl experiences this slowly, but surely. She first notices it when her history teacher mixes up her name with another Black girl. Oh, I’m sorry. You just remind me of her. The young girl thinks it wouldn’t be so bad if the girl was at least in that class.
To think you can experience the atrocities of being Black for only a ticket entry into a museum! The young girl thinks this is just Blackface without the paint, a metaphorical disgust. Once you step inside the Segregation exhibit at the Civil Rights Museum in Alabama, there are certain trigger points for the viewers to step on. These trigger points set off a recording of presumably a White person who would say things like “You don’t belong here,” or “Get out of here,” so people can really get the sense of what it was like to be a Black person for a day.
To be young and Black and Girl is to be constantly looking over your shoulders, in hopes that none of those White faces reappear in the shadows when you closes your eyes; and to certainly be afraid of your own shadows. It is to experience the heavy White hand ripping through your hair. A petting of dehumanizing proportions.
Let’s go back to age nine, as she reads a book called Copper Sun, where on the cover there is a profile photo of a young Black girl. Her face is shrouded in shadows because she is us, and we are her. We do not need to see her face or else we will see our own.
At this age, the young girl recognizes that she is not what is desired. Her classmates point out her nappy bundle of hair on her head every chance they get. The classmate she thought was a close friend was secretly calling her a Black Bitch to their peers during a field trip. The young girl wonders for a long time why she says Black in front of the word bitch.
In the girl’s household, it is commonplace to be denigrated about how hair is worn. Are you really going out the house with your head looking like that? These words ring like a bell throughout the echoes of the heart chamber of the young girl. It is the reason why everyday she comes to school with her hair smelling like burnt metal. It is the reason she always code-switches, adjusting her soul to the tunings of what she thinks White folks want. She learns it best from her mama.
Growing in adolescence, the young girl finds herself entrenched in the world of books. Despite her busy schedule, she makes it an intention to read at least one book from the library a week. In the wooden shelves of her community library, she checks out the book, Sister Outsider. She cannot help but to take pride in reading her first Black feminist piece of literature. The effect is immediate: she begins to pick out her afro the next day, unafraid of the stares it may bring. She no longer walks with her head down, but instead meets people in the eyes. She finds her source of light to bloom in.
It is never the young girl’s plan to become enticed by the poetry of Blackness. As a young woman, she grows to admire the way her hair defies the laws of gravity. How the softness of her curls grace her head as a crown would in a past life.
To grow and be Black and Girl is learning the truths of her people. To walk in pride in the way she looks whether that includes braids, wigs, or afros. To come from a legacy of women who made cities of gold out of hard lumps of clay. It is learning that she must never stay silent in the face of Whiteness, despite all it may cost.
It is the melodies of the jazz band when they transport the listener to another planet. The grief that oozes from the mouth of Paul Robeson when he sings Deep River. The scats and harmonies of Ella Fitzgerald. It is the sound of Sister Rosetta Tharpe strumming her guitar in Arkansas before the Beatles ever even knew what one was.
Taylor Simone Haynes is an emerging writer from the suburbs of Chicago pursuing her BFA in creative writing. Her writing focuses on analysis of race, gender, and sexuality with an intermix of personal history. In her past time, she loves to watch interviews on the likes of bell hooks, Assata Shakur, Alice Walker, and many other cultural figures. One of her favorite books is Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.