day one of white terror in the black imagination: backlash against subversion within conformist spaces

During my efforts to raise funds to leave New York City for an indefinite period of time, I began a process of forgetfulness. I honestly thought that if I obtained another office job, show up, work, and go home, then my rage could be dealt. I envisioned myself working in the morning, and writing at night; finding that balance between the stress/fear of white office space, and peace of mind in quiet moments alone. In non-work environments, I am surrounded by folks who are radical like me, committed to ending oppression in myriad ways. This visibility, however, does not lend itself to the shifting I must use to navigate in the world of whiteness. Its stark contrast, its comforting blanket does not prepare me for societal backlash. I was given a reminder my very first day at Practising Law Institute.

I considered myself lucky to have found this job, so soon after my last temporary position ceased. My impeccable cover writing skills and my talent for embellishing the truth on my resume impressed my future boss. I was nervous meeting him for our supposed-informal interview, for he most likely assumed I was a white person. Perhaps being too comfortable in my external radical chic and naivety about bourgeois non-profit offices informed my decision to wear a plentiful-patterned skirt-dress to my interview. Even though my nervousness poked through my veil via my stammers and lost trains of thought, he still hired me.

My day-one outfit was not as colorful, at least not to me. I attempted to be conservative and alternative simultaneously. I do not believe in succumbing our oppressive dominant system, the monotonous machine that ensures objectivity. I desperately seek comfort within workspace. Hence, my wearing of gold mini-circles that formed a pair of earrings that jingle with every step I took towards the water fountain. It was 80 degrees outside. I could not imagine wearing long pants, my legs baking in Midtown’s oven. I wore longer shorts than usual. I thought of them as my sacrifice, my mini-collusion with white workspace. My gray sweater-shirt added an extra conservative touch that perhaps my blue Hawaiian shorts and jingle-jangle earrings could not afford. I thought my attire was fine.

As beautiful as my jingle-jangle earrings are, they are reminiscent of my presence in this space. Every walk I take to the bathroom, to the water fountain, I am saying that I am visible; one can hear me. When office workers look up from their dreadful computer screens, they do not see a tall, conservatively-dressed white woman, embodying conformist/white supremacist beauty standards. They see a short, caramel-colored black woman with a shaved head, piercings, and the audacity to subvert space with her colors. Their negative gazes informs me that I am too radical for the colluders to digest. Those thoughts were packaged neatly in a “why does she get to wear shorts, and I cannot,” a disgruntled worker complained to my boss. How sad it is to be uncomfortable in an environment, where one is already in discomfort, performing mindless tasks, that one cannot even wear long shorts?! These thoughts pit the oppressed against each other. The oppressor didn’t bat an eye to inform me that I could not wear shorts to the office anymore. Instead of finding ways to alleviate this discomfort, which would create a happier work environment, they deem it best to silence any dissent, any beauty that might shine through dullness.

As this was brought to my attention, my first inclination was to pretend to blindly agree. It was after our exchange I began to critically assess the situation. I thought about how our white supremacist gaze informs how we speak to people and what we say. If tall, unenlightened person peers down to speak to another, conditioned to believe that their height makes them superior to their short counterpart, within that interaction is a force of domination. What further constructs this interaction as complicity with oppression is the hue and gender of that short person. If I were a tall white person, or a tall light-skinned person of color, would my boss had been quick to pull me aside, inform me of the office chatter surrounding my long shorts? I may never know, but from my many experiences with authority, I doubt it. I saw this as an assault on my presence in the office. It triggered feelings of ultra-vigilance on jobs, cognizant of working extra hard because any problems would result in my immediate dismissal. It was reminiscent of the overall devaluation of black women within society, that we can only be visible and accepted when we far exceed expectations. Within those contexts, my rage surfaced. I had been duped to believe I could “make it” in this bullshit white world. As I stepped out of the building, onto congested streets, my rage reached boiling point. “Look at where I am! In the belly of the whiteness beast,” I proclaimed to myself, unbeknownst to the tourists shuffling inside their hotel suites. My body felt ill from all the pollution and lack of clean air I had been breathing all day. I was already upset that I couldn’t find a decent healthy meal during my lunch break. I thought about myriad ways this culture kills. We are stuck to chairs for eight hours a day, with little access to clean water that would enable better digestion of the poisonous take-out foods we eat every day. The stress of riding the train consumed me. I sarcastically looked forward to being a sardine, amongst many sardines, packed in a dirty train car, touching poles contaminated with future-discovered diseases. Where does this rage go? What can I do to transgress my rage into light, working towards meaningfulness and purpose in my bleak caste?

I tried reading Freedom Dreams: Black Radical Imagination, but to no avail. I wished I had a pen and journal to jot down my rage, contain it until I arrived home. Thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts continued to permeate each crevice of my brain. I wondered how can I further my decolonization by actively divesting of white supremacist and sexist ideology in my daily interactions, and aide others on this path. I prayed to the universe, asking never to have such unfortunate fate, working in an unenlightened setting, again.

a/an [terse] account on why I am writing this blog

Teenage angst was my best friend. Words about being depressed, and reinventing myself as a white hipster punk with green hair flowed effortlessly onto the pages of my exercise books. It required much of my time, and I wholeheartedly accepted each challenge, daydream-writing while learning about Bunsen burners in chemistry class. It was my default mode of expression. I savored every chance of usage during arguments with my parents. It was my advantage, for externally, I could not express the oppressive west-indian grip my parents held on my consciousness. 

I was in the midst of an internal struggle. I fought to become more social, to leave the supposed-nurturing confines of the Internet. I fought to push myself into the external world, and have a basis for communication with my peers. It was dependent, I thought, on the latest Sevens jeans and Asics sneakers I acquired at sample sales and adorned; on the noisiest C-86 band I conjured from the depths of British obscurity and adored. Above all, I wanted love. I wanted to be loved, to be in love, and to have my beauty be affirmed. Like a caged bird, away from the protective gaze of my parents. I flew, seeking validation within the contours of white male supremacy.

My last major work, written my junior year at Brooklyn Technical, was a 25-page research paper on alternative rock music in New York. It was my first experience writing about a topic I cared about in an academic setting. While the research aspect of the piece accrued over a period of months, the actual writing only took a weekend. I was perfecting my procrastinating skills, pushing the words out of my being like a demon exorcised. The pressure under such time restraints breathed life within me, as my music journalism career brimmed with promise. I foresaw university academia as a series of pills ingested for every essay needed written, and every boring book needed read. I foresaw myself completing these tasks with ease, because if everyone was doing it, then I could too!

I later realized that this was the advent of my silence. In my quest to cease my insecurities, I became unable to write.

The silence was deafening, as I tried to complete my first assignment for a class on diversity at Syracuse University. Researching Saartjie Baartman on Wikipedia was more interesting than writing about a documentary film about the origins of humans. After my first grades showcased the letter ‘F’ multiple times, I told my parents I was unhappy. Instead of finding a solution, they wanted to resuscitate the facade of their American daughter in college. I had to return for another semester, to prove to them that I wasn’t partying or doing drugs, that my mental breakdown rested solely on external distractions. When I returned to that sorrowful dorm room, activities like eating White-out and dancing to Teena Marie at 2am became my modes of survival. Instead of walking briskly to class every day, I fostered my education through my curiosity for societal functions within popular culture. I began to question injustices, like why light-skinned women were exalted for their beauty on America’s Next Top Model, versus dark-skinned women being predominantly ridiculed on Flavor of Love. I began my path to enlightenment by researching and reading oppression theory to fully understand my life; how I have been coerced to conformity.

Fast forward, many retail jobs, homelessness, and realizations later, I gain strength to project my internal cogitations. I needed a space and a means to articulate it. My reason being I want to facilitate the eradication of oppression: colorist/racist, sexist, capitalist, size, agist; anything and everything that keeps people from simply living and being comfortable in their skin. I found one way to do it. I write.

Being queer, black, and female-bodied are the spices of life.