Black Healing in White Space

[Music]

i had an

unfair amount of spoiled brat rage

towards my parents

in my late teens it was because i felt

they had whitewashed my childhood

by constantly putting me in white spaces

and what i wasn’t

ready to deal with at that point was i

wasn’t mad at my parents for

providing me access to these spaces i

was mad at the kid i became

in those spaces and i don’t think my

parents fully understood that i was

struggling

because they didn’t grow up like i did

they grew up black in nashville

tennessee

during the peak of the civil rights

movement and they were already teenagers

by the time nashville started to

integrate schools

september 9th 1957

marked the first day that black and

white kids were able to go to school

together

the very next day on september 10th

one of those schools exploded thanks to

a hundred sticks of dynamite

and clearly a strong will to keep things

the same

i often think about the bravery and

foresight those parents had to have

enrolling their kids in those schools

because it was a choice

and they had already experienced the

threats of intimidation

just at the mere thought of putting

their black kids at those white schools

forget about the spitting and the

taunting and the rock throwing

they had to physically endure as they

walked into the building that first day

with their children

i’ve never properly honored my parents

for having a front row seat

to that level of indignity for most of

their childhood

so now as a parent and as an adult

i understand what they were trying to do

they were trying to give me and my

sister

the keys to all the doors that were

locked for them growing

up and places towns schools that are

often deemed high opportunity well

they’re

also often predominantly white and

sometimes always like all white and

adapting in those spaces isn’t a new

phenomenon for black folks

listen i code switch like i breathe code

switching is slipping

in and out of an alternate way of

speaking depending on your surroundings

and it’s a survival skill for black

folks

and w e b du bois spoke about that

double consciousness

all the way back in 1904 he spoke about

the american and the negro two souls

in one body and we speak about that

duality often in my home

i’ve been married for 21 years to a

black man who

never dims his light and blackness has

come

up and taken up a lot of space in our

lives

and the lives of our five children

and to deal with that we try to submerge

them in the art and the books and

the truth and the history of just who

they are which

as tragic as the stories are in this

country for black folks

they’re also so gloriously triumphant

and exposing my kids to those truths

have given them the black consciousness

that i was clearly lacking growing up

when i was 11 my mother let me know she

had enrolled me in this exclusive and

elite dance school

but what i heard is i was going to be

living my best famed dreams with leroy

and the gang

so we ran out and we got a blue leotard

it’s electric blue because it was the

late 80s and slinky earrings

and when i got there my mom coated me in

more baby oil because you know black

women don’t do ashy

and they pointed me in the direction of

my first class and my mother was off

so i was alone and when i opened the

doors

my heart fell she had enrolled me in a

classical

ballet school and there they all were

on time in white identical

in black leotard pale pink tights hair

pinned up perfectly in a bun

meanwhile i looked like a backup dancer

in a rick james video

and they made me take out my slinky

earrings and you know it’s like a

slow death taking out accessories you’re

not supposed to be wearing

and as i looked at a song in line with

my brown thighs glistening

in the mirror i heard that sesame street

song in my head

one of these things is not like the

other

one of these things doesn’t belong

and when i got in the car with my mother

i lost it

i had held it together for most of the

day but

i went on and on about how i couldn’t

believe she sent me there and

i was never going back and my mother’s

response stripped in the resilience that

black moms go everything in you’ll be

fine

i’ll get you what you need but you’re

going back

and you’re lucky to be there sasha

you’re lucky to be there i wore this

like a badge of honor

and white spaces for most of my

adolescence and it wasn’t as if i didn’t

know i was black or i wasn’t proud to be

black i love my family

but i was so proud to be this new and

improved version of black that

i thought was so refined that white

people couldn’t help but let me into

their spaces

and i hope by proximity to whiteness i

wouldn’t have to deal with all the

racial traumas

black folks have to endure every day

i was bugging and in those moments i

elevated white normalcy and white

supremacy as a kid

that’s what internalized racism looks

like

and the brief reward of feeling like i

belonged

was far outweighed by the damage i was

doing to my spirit

and by the time i got to college i

became sort of

a time traveler and a stay-at-home

historian

and i read everything i could from books

on slavery and slave rebellions and

jim crow era and civil rights movement

the black panthers

you name it i read it and reading hill

wounds

i didn’t know i had i started to feel

more like

a whole person and less like a

caricature

and i moved back to my hometown of

middletown to raise my family

and middletown’s a very progressive and

diverse college town

and we’re in the last phases of building

a state-of-the-art middle school to

replace the middle school i went to

which was woodrow wilson middle school

now

if you know his history he was a proud

racist

and died never seeing the error of his

ways so

it seemed like a no-brainer new school

new building

new name so i joined the naming

committee which is going to be a group

of

community members that were going to

explore some name options for the school

and i’m totally invested in this because

my only son is going to be

part of the first classes to attend the

school and

i want a name that’s worthy of him and

woodrow wilson middle ain’t it

now side note i’ve now graduated from

that

lucky to be here narrative to new and

improved

you’re lucky to have me mentality and it

doesn’t always translate well

i’m not gonna lie but this is where i am

i’m claiming my space

in honor of my parents and my children

and i’m coming as a whole person

no halfsies not divided one body

one black american soul so

when i get to that first meeting i go

directly to a table where

the committee was already uh sitting

down

and there were two women of color

already there before i could even

exchange

pleasantries with them from behind me

this voice like smacked me in the back

of the neck

this was supposed to be a diverse

committee

this isn’t a good representation of us

it was that loud and

that intentional so i was like wow okay

duly noted and behind me is a group of

older white men and women and it becomes

abundantly clear

not everybody’s excited about this name

change like i am

it was for a bunch of reasons one of the

main ones was that it would be

a racing history which was so ironic to

me

because black people’s contributions to

this country

have been crucial to our success yet

they often have gone

not written minimized hidden

and yes erased so you’re gonna miss me

with your racing history speech

so when i went home that night i was

livid and i posted publicly

about my experience at that first

meeting

and i know that doesn’t always go well

but

i couldn’t pretend to not hear and

feel what i felt that day and all those

years of it quietly ignoring

implicit and explicit biases like that

have made me who i am now and it wasn’t

that i didn’t feel like

of course they had the right to feel how

they felt

some of them were truly nostalgic

but was so confusing to me is they also

stood hand in hand

with those who cruelly mocked us for

just wanting better for our kids

and then somehow the burden falls on me

to figure out who’s who

when i’m seeing a oneness and a sameness

in this group

so anyway the post worked and people

reached out and

they wrote op-eds and they showed up for

public forums

pre-covert of course and in support of

this name change

it was great until it wasn’t and those

pro joe wilsoners demanded that i be

removed from the committee because i

didn’t like the

tone of my post which was absurd and

didn’t happen

so they took it a step further and they

contacted my employer

to let them know that i said all white

people were racist

they wanted to know if my company agreed

with that standpoint

they wanted to know if i had any white

clients because of course

they needed to be alerted and they

signed a concerned parent

they threatened my livelihood

over a lie because they were threatened

by me

and i haven’t mentioned that i’m a real

estate agent

and the homeownership gap between black

and white americans in this country

is larger now than it was in 1960

when it was actually legal to

discriminate against us so yeah

most of my clients are white people and

as that

concerned parent want to let me know i

need white people to like me

but not the expense of my truth or my

spirit because i’m not doing that

anymore

but i was scared i worked for a high-end

luxury brokerage that

for a second when i signed that contract

with them

i wondered if i was good enough to work

for them because

even in my mid-40s i i have to be

cognizant

of not internalizing those questions of

my worth

in spaces that don’t reflect me so when

my broker called me to let me know about

this email

i thought i was going to lose my job but

luckily for me

she stood in the pain in the rage of

that moment and she had my back

and she just missed that email

but after talking to my family we

realized this was just going to get

worse

and i decided it would be best if i

stepped off

stepped down from the committee

but about a week later an old classmate

reached out

and she was so excited because she was

going to be submitting

a name to the navy committee and she was

collaborating with a wesleyan professor

on this

i remember being crazy dismissive of her

during this call because i felt helpless

like what was i going to do

but i couldn’t unhear what she said that

day

and it echoed for days it was beam in

middle

and you’re all looking at me like who

the hell are the demons so

i’ll explain the demons are family of

black abolitionists

cesar beeman gained gained his freedom

by fighting in its master’s place in the

revolutionary war

they were actively involved in the

underground railroad

they moved to middletown they bought

land and

subdivided it and sold it off to other

freed slaves

i know i had to pivot

and i actually learned in the process

that it’s common council

who has final naming authority over all

city owned property

so they became my focus i worked with

friends in the community and even my

oldest daughter

to get people who had the same shared

vision for the town

that we had and i have to say the end

results were

the most diverse group of people ever

elected together

in city history and it included our

first

black councilwoman it was historic

and that day could only be topped by one

one thing for me

on august 3rd 2020 that common council

voted to name

our new middle school beeman middle

cesar beeman picked his own name instead

of keeping a slave name beeman

be a man this school

in a predominantly white town in

connecticut

is named after a former enslaved man

so intentional in claiming his humanity

that he picked a name to reflect that

desire

i felt like i won something like my

family had won something our

community had tapped into that shared

responsibility to

elevate and tell these stories of these

great black american heroes

and i mean with 2020 i needed this with

protests heard all over the world

and after the murder of george floyd

our mayor created an anti-racism task

force

and i’m proud to say that i was

appointed co-chair

and the work continues there’s so much

work to do

but the work we’re doing in middletown

will be transformative to the next

generation of kids

all kids i really feel like could be

done anywhere

and when i look at this now

viral image of president-elect

kamala harris walking into the white

house

in the shadows of a six-year-old ruby

bridges who was also a first

when she integrated schools in new

orleans in the 1960s

we are all in the shadows of those who

come before us

and we have a shared responsibility to

clear the path

for those that come after us and when i

think about my son

walking into beam and middle in the

shadows of the beeman family

i can’t tell you how excited that makes

me and when i sit with

all the sacrifices that were made so i

can be who i am now

which is unapologetically black in all

spaces

i have to say my mother was right

i am lucky to be here thank you