White Girl In a Black World

I grew up white in a black world, and my childhood was rife with turmoil.

I was an outcast, taunted and beat up. I was vilified because I dared to love the black boy upstairs. By the time I was 11, white people called me “nigger lover” and black people ostracized me.

I belonged nowhere.

We were together for years – until that one day in junior high school, white boys chased us down deserted train tracks. My screams for help echoed sharply off the metal rails, as they beat on his arms with a crow bar. Until one broke.

We were never together again.

We have kept track of each other our whole lives. The scar tissue around our hearts preserves a wary distance between us.

Still, I dream of being reunited with him someday.

 

The great love of my life before I got married was a dark brown man I spent many years with.

He was undeniably gorgeous. Far better looking than I was or will ever be. One evening, on an overcrowded D train, a young black woman screamed at me for daring to be with this beautiful man, ugly fucking white bitch that I was.

Trapped in that subway car, I had no escape. He tried to subdue her, but she only screamed louder, said uglier things. I folded into myself, rendered mute by her attack. I was ashamed of my skin color. Again.

I stared down, hot tears dripping into my lap.

We broke up soon after that.

 

My childhood in a black NYC housing project has left me with a paradoxical mix of emotions and loyalties.

Although I grew up fearful of being persecuted because of my white skin, I also developed a fierce allegiance towards African-Americans, an allegiance that informs how I live my life today.

I loathe racism.

When I drive into Newark for my community service project, and people remark, “I wouldn’t even park my car there,” I SEETHE.  They are not saying that based on statistical data on street crime in Newark, which may even indicate that car jackings happen frequently there.

They just mean, “Newark is full of black people.”

 

I was sexually assaulted twice in my life. Once at a college frat party, and once in a seedy New York shooting gallery. My personal mythology tells me that heroes and villains come in ALL colors; that an Ivy League white boy is just as likely to rape me as a black drug dealer, and you will NEVER convince me otherwise.

 

My painful memories are valid. But I have not spent my entire adulthood fearful that I will die for the color of my skin.

I have had several skirmishes with police over the years, more than I care to think about. Yet, I never had to worry THAT I MIGHT NOT MAKE IT HOME ALIVE.

 

Recent events have left me completely paralyzed in my ability to write anything.

This is not writer’s block. I have lost my belief in the power of the written word.

I’m plagued by the thought that not just my work, but all creative expression, is in vain when the world suffers such tragedy.

What do my stories even matter, in the face of these larger, horrific events?

 

I am an inner city project girl at heart. I have the fear, rage, defiance and survival instincts of a project girl, and always will.

And yet, I am undeniably WHITE. To even suggest that I understand what it means to live life in black skin is offensive. I was able to shed my project girl past.

And I am alive, largely due to the color of my skin, whereas most of the people I grew up with are dead today.

 

For weeks I have walked around uneasily, with a cold knot of fear in my stomach.

Everyone is ranting on, and no one is listening. People are quoting statistics as if it matters whether one, or one million, dead bodies lie on slabs.

The Civil War was caused by racism. And I know it’s going to happen again. Right here, on American soil, we will be a nation divided, and make no mistake about it –

There will be blood.

 

I’M SO ANGRY listening to self-aggrandizing politicians drone on about change.

I AM TIRED OF THEIR WORDS.

I want to don army fatigues, dash into the fray like a warrior, and physically put my body in between black men and bullets; between policeman and bullets.

But I am a coward, just as I was 35 years ago, when I stopped loving the black boy upstairs.

 

 

 

The music of my childhood was 70’s R&B. I have loved and lived with dark skinned men. My first true love was black. My first best friend was black. The first house parties I attended were all black.

Black culture feels like home to me.

I’m going to get CRUCIFIED for saying that, because of my white privilege. How DARE I appreciate the positive aspects of a culture without suffering from oppression? If I talk about my love for rap music, dark-skinned men, soul food, cornrow braids – I’m appropriating a culture.

The world has become so divisive on the issue of race, I’m afraid of expressing my love of black culture. I feel shame, again, because of my white skin.

I am not entitled to love Black America because I am not willing to die for her.

Yet try as I might to deconstruct this, to make it more politically palatable, I cannot. I cannot stop loving black culture anymore than I can stop loving my son. It’s embedded in me on a cellular level.

No matter how angry it makes you, you can’t take that from me.

 

And so now I am finally AWAKE. And I will fight.

My weapons will be to speak out against anyone who says something racist and ignorant. I will forbid adults to spew their racist rhetoric in front of my child, ever.

I will speak out on social media, instead of hiding in desperate avoidance.

And I am moving my family out of this white washed, homogenous suburban neighborhood. I will raise my child in a culturally diverse neighborhood, because he deserves better than this.

 

 

I wrote this despite my overarching belief that right now, creative expression is useless.

I wrote this because until I did, I could write nothing else.

I wrote this because although I am afraid, I must do SOMETHING. And this is all I have.

I wrote this because I KNOW that fear is built into the racist society in which we live, and used to control ALL of us.

I wrote this because although I may not be racist, I enable racism EVERY DAY by participating in a racist society. 

I wrote this because maybe, MAYBE, someone else who has been asleep will awaken now, like I finally have.

I wrote this because despite all my fear, inaction and shame,

there is a speck of hope

for the possibility of change.

 

Click below if you’d like to hear my spoken word piece, “White Girl.”

 

Talk to me.
We all need desperately to start talking, and I’m REALLY listening. 

Join me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, 

Cornrows and Curls: Untangling the Politics of Hair

 

I’ve spent a large portion of my life waging war against my hair.

It’s a nightmare. My hair is curly and frizzy. Not loose lustrous curls –  small, tightly coiled kinky curls.

I grew up being told I had “Black hair.” It was not meant in a pejorative way. I was a white girl in a black housing project. It was just a way to characterize the texture of my hair. Black people told me it was “nappy.”

White people made fun of me and called me “Nigger knots.”

 

When I was a little girl, every morning was devoted to the taming of this fuzzy tangled mess. For one hour, I stood at the sink, my legs cramping, holding back tears as the the heavy brush banged against my head.

My mother slathered my curls in Dax, and Ultra Sheen, relentlessly pulling and stretching my hair into submission. Finally she would wind it into two long, waxy pigtails

I longed for bone-straight, parted in the middle, 70’s hair. Laurie Partridge hair. My mother was less concerned with the Partridge Family and more concerned that I not run around with a wild mass of frizz jutting out of my head.

By the time I was 8, she was straightening my hair with chemical relaxers. They were foul-smelling products which stung my eyes and nasal passages. The lye dripped onto my neck and burnt my tender skin.

In between chemical processing there were searing hot metal combs used to press and flatten my hair into surrender. They straightened my hair, and burnt it  – as well as accidentally burning my ears and scalp too many times to count.

Curly hair is labor-intensive. I didn’t have the time or patience to wear my hair curly every day. When I got older, I no longer had to suffer drugstore lye and scalp burns. I went to black hair salons in Bedford Stuyvesant, where they knew how to deal with my hair.

Today, I still relax my hair. I use organic keratin and go to white people salons in the suburbs.

 

 

 

When I was a girl, to keep my hair neat during the summer while giving it a break from harsh chemicals, I got my hair done up in braids. Cornrows. This is a habit that has stayed with me, on and off, into adulthood.

I recently found out that these days, if I braid my hair? I am “appropriating a culture.”

Evidently, African Americans are tired of white people adopting black culture – music, hair, style of dress, speech – and neglecting to raise awareness for black issues. It’s not right to take the fun, hip part of being black and leave the bad parts behind. That’s considered “racial appropriation.”

I REJECT THIS.

If white people dress, make music and wear our hair to emulate African Americans, are we not paying homage to them? When did it become offensive to celebrate the aspects of a culture?

Kylie Jenner started a shade war when she posted a picture on Instagram in corn rows and low slung sweats. The disingenuous caption to the photo was “I woke up like disss.”

Is Kylie Jenner an asshole? Absolutely. But not for her cultural misappropriation. She’s an asshole because she was born into a family of assholes who make their livings being assholes.

Amandla Stenberg, the 16-year-old actress from The Hunger Games, decided to call her out by commenting on the photo:

“when u appropriate black features and culture but fail to use ur position of power to help black Americans by directing attention towards ur wigs instead of police brutality or racism #whitegirlsdoitbetter “

I REJECT THIS.

I reject the idea that in order to embrace and celebrate black culture, people are obligated to direct attention towards police brutality and racism. And how does it help anything to publicly chastise Kylie Jenner in front of millions, to humiliate her in an attempt to expose her as racist? It doesn’t.

IT JUST DEEPENS THE DIVIDE.

 

Cultural appropriation allegedly occurs when ignorant white people pick and choose what part of the black experience to adopt into their lives, while simultaneously invalidating the challenges faced by black women who will never have access to white privilege.

We partake of a culture for fashion, all the while purposely disinterested in the adversity faced by that culture.

I REJECT THIS.

I resent the gross generalization that because I am white and choose to braid my hair, that I am unaware of race issues. To declare that by borrowing from a culture, we are, by definition, ignorant of that culture’s historical struggles, is ludicrous. That kind of stock characterization of white philistinism propagates racism and distrust. It invites ridicule; in essence, it’s wearing “white face.”

 

According to the black community, the history connected to these styles, the context in which they were created, is essential to wearing them. These styles are the contemporary remnants of slavery. A white person who wears these styles cares nothing for that context and turns black hair styles into travesty, empty fashion, mocking the black race.

In fact, by wearing these styles white people are systematically breaking down the rich history of black culture, and continuing to exploit the black race just as slavery and segregation did.

I REJECT THIS.

I am TIRED of being blamed for past generations’ idiocy. If, by association, I am guilty of the crimes of a system by being part of the system, then we are all guilty. Which renders the concept of guilt meaningless.

Stop blaming me for oppression and hate I had nothing to do with.

I just want to get my braids done.

 

I am sadly aware that African-American women have been made to alter their appearances to maintain their jobs and their respectability. Many have been forced to give up natural black hair styles in what can only be described as an attempt to force them to adopt a “whiter” look.

This is heinous.

But now, if I put my hair in cornrows, I am accused of using my “white privilege” to exploit black culture’s historical symbols to satisfy my shallow need for self-expression.

I REJECT THIS.

I should be free to wear my hair however I choose. I cannot change what has happened in the past. I can only fight for a better future. I know that even today, black skin still acts as a mark of negative difference. On many fronts, black America is in crisis.

But restricting MY personal freedom is not going to address racism and economic injustice. Cultural appropriation is just another way to create discord between races.

Am I only allowed to adopt the hairstyles or music genres, of my ancestors? If I am allowed beyond my own heritage, who draws the line, and where is it drawn? Can I enjoy the films of Spike Lee? The music of Miles Davis?

Culture is not black and white. Like many things, it lives in the gray area. It’s borrowed, repurposed, and reformed over and over again. Exchange of culture creates empathy, and tolerance. It’s what makes up the richly woven tapestry of our lives.

I refuse to view my enjoyment of other cultures through the lens of appropriation. If that makes me part of the problem – then so be it. Fling your accusations at me because of my white girl braids.

I’ll be over here, celebrating the beauty of cultural exchange by dancing through life to the music of cultures from all over the world.

Should white people wear cornrows? How do you feel about cultural appropriation?
Does that include doing yoga? Talk to me. I’m listening.

white girl

 

 

I haven’t performed spoken word in twenty years.

Actually, I avoided it as much as I could. It brought back some memories that I didn’t want to think of.

But somehow, this piece leapt off the page and needed a voice. So, I gave it one.

It’s about growing up white in an all-black housing project. You can read it – or listen to me speak it.

Today, on the Sisterwives blog.

Thank you for joining me as I step into my past and my future, simultaneously.

xo,

Samara

 

On Using The N-Word in Your Post Title: A Cautionary Tale

Is it possible to fall in love at 8 years old? I did. I can’t say his name, because he went on to become well known in the Manhattan music scene. Part of me itches to write it; and accidentally reach him, this man I’m still a little in love with.

He lived upstairs from me. We became “boyfriend-girlfriend” 3 year later, in middle school. I was 11, he was 12. My first kiss. His mouth tasted like warm honey.

People say love is blind. Which includes color blind. He was black, I was white. We didn’t say “African-American” back then. I didn’t see his color. Or rather, my love for him transcended it.

I was 11 the first time someone hurled this vituperation at me: “N-word Lover.” I was confused. Yes, I loved him. What did that even mean?

He was an incredibly talented drummer. He lived for music, and for me.

When we were in 8th grade, boys from another neighborhood chased him into a deserted area.

Hunted him, like an animal.

And broke his arm.

—

It healed. I did not.

By high school, we were apart, and I knew the agony of first love ended. Off he went to Music and Art, as New Yorkers call it. High School of Performing Arts, the school the movie “Fame” is set in.

We’d broken up before that. Our families stepped in and demanded we split right after he’d been attacked.  These words awaken a memory that pierces me afresh. Details have been imprinted permanently; then veiled. Now the veil is lifted.

I had that revilement hurled at me many times over the decades that followed. Anytime I dated a man of color, I was abused by both races. White people felt I was somehow betraying my race. African-American or Hispanic people felt I was “stealing” from them, dating men I had no business dating.

It’s No Man’s land.

In the end, I was a coward. I married a white Jewish man I shouldn’t have crossed the street with. Because he was one of my own “kind.” I’m not saying I didn’t love him – I did. Deeply. But by the time I met him, I only dated Caucasian men. I’d had enough.

I live in an area where there are almost no Jewish people. I didn’t know that when I bought my house. Even if I had- it wouldn’t have mattered. I just don’t think about those things.

But now I have a child. And I have to think about those things. He is always the only Jewish kid in his class. He feels very alone. He suffers for it.

He had a best friend last year. His mother sought me out on Back-To-School Night. Came in, calling out, “Where is Little Dude’s mom, Andrew cannot not stop talking about him!”  We exchanged numbers. They were BFFs from the first day of school. Inseparable for months.

Until Andrew found out we were Jewish. After that, he never spoke to my son again.

When you have a kid, and they hurt like that…it’s different than your own hurt. It’s much, much worse. It’s an amalgam of your pain and theirs. Times one hundred.

And this week, yet again.  We’re hosting a holiday breakfast in his classroom. The class mom emailed the 4 of us running it, asking who would like to read a holiday book. Little Dude was all over that.

“Mom, please, YOU be the reader!”

He’s been listening to Christmas books for the last 5 years. So I volunteered. The class mom asked if we needed the librarian to help us choose something.

“No thanks, he’s picked his favorite Hanukkah book. It’s hilarious, and the kids will love it.”

She sent me an email.  No holiday books allowed. The teacher only wants winter-themed books.

After I could breathe again, I starting working on how I was going to present this to my son. I ended up just saying it very offhandedly,

“Oh, Mrs. Dugan wants a winter-themed book; we should go the library to get one.”

He’s too smart for that.  “What? Since when? That’s crazy! They read a Christmas book every year” and on and on.  That night he cried himself to sleep, which he hasn’t done in years.

 —

I needed to put the pain of this somewhere. I wrote a post about Real Life Trolls attacking me.  I titled it:

“Confessions of a N-word Lover.” I spelled the word out.

Because of all things in the world,  I abhor racism the most. Because I’ve proudly loved black, white, and brown men. Because I thought I would use that word blatantly and take the stigma off of it. Like the artist who inspired me to become a writer – Patti Smith.

I contacted Le Clown, because I was borrowing a phrase of his in the post. I wanted to make sure he was comfortable with that.

 And then he took the time, because he is the incredible Clown he is, to tell me that he was worried for me. That he feared I would be attacked, not by trolls, but by well spoken people. And that it was perhaps not my place to take the sting off this word, because using it lacked sensitivity.

Thank God.

I took it down.

If people don’t read you, then your message exists in a vacuum.

Mostly, I took it down because the thought of hurting anyone is abhorrent to me. As immune as I am to that word in print, others are not. Others did not grow up desensitized to it through repetition.

Le Clown was right.

After I posted today, I went on my reader to comment on some posts.  Bloggers had unfollowed me; beloved bloggers.

And now? Now I have to sit with the fact that I hurt some of you. Maybe many of you.

What if you unfollowed me because you’re  African-American? Or if you’re married to someone African-American?  Or you just thought it was disgusting?

This post is to say, if I hurt you, I am sorry. I was insensitive. This was a hard lesson.

Yes, I am provocative and edgy. But to hurt people? The way I’ve been hurt? The way my son is being hurt? To do the exact thing to people that incited me to write the damn post?

It’s tearing me up. And now I have to live with that.

We have to do better. Intentions are not enough. If my actions are insensitive; cause pain, whether intentional or not, I need to examine those actions.  Better yet, to think before I act.

—

I wish I’d had the courage to marry the boy upstairs.

And we were sitting here right now, and he would kiss me with those beautiful, honey flavored, color blind lips.

Kiss these tears off my face.

Kiss these words off my lips.

Did I do the right thing, taking that post down? Talk to me. I’m listening.