Janelle Gray's Blog, page 10

Are you really listening?

Look. Everyone has an opinion about this. Everyone wants some homogenized deference to a symbol. But there’s a root cause to this entire argument that no one is even listening to. We can’t even agree on what that symbol means!It’s both as simple and complex as a wedding ring. Everyone knows it’s supposed to represents a promise made to your spouse. But what happens when that promise is repeatedly broken? How much do you value, honor, and respect that symbol when it no longer holds the same meaning?Here’s the thing. When it comes to kneeling or standing during the national anthem, there are some major issues with the conversation.The first issue is: it’s the wrong conversation.Kaepernick originally knelt to bring awareness to disproportionate punishment for and police brutality against people of color. Why did the voices become so loud when they were protecting the flag and not the people it’s said to represent? Why are we so passionate about the symbols and not what they symbolize? We’ve become a country of politics over people and flags over feelings. That’s the conversation that needs to be had.It’s like going to church, listening to the pastor pray, and being mad he didn’t clasp his hands together. Did it really matter that his hands were together or open? Or does it matter that he declared Jesus as his savior? That’s the starting point.The second issue is: these symbols don’t represent the same thing for everyone. Let’s start with the irony of people yelling, “This represents the men and women who died for your right to kneel in this country.” Well, if that’s true, doesn’t that mean I get to choose to kneel?Furthermore, the flag and anthem represent our military…to you. Not to me. You want me to deny my feelings for the sake of yours? Let’s turn this around.What if people yelled back, “You should kneel! That flag represents an untruth. It represents the good in this country that isn’t happening! How dare you stand during a song that celebrates the victory of a country that continued to sell humans, ignore the poor, and exploit women. How dare you admire a song that praises the hopes and dreams of only white men? Hundreds of thousands of brown people died for your right to stand during that song.” If that were yelled at you, would you feel comfortable and proud standing?Those who are kneeling aren’t berating others who choose to stand. They’re not even asking they kneel with them. They’re simply requesting that you consider their reality and your role in changing it. And we can’t even agree on that!When it comes down to it, the main problem is that many people don’t think there’s a problem. People think that the race issue was created by the previous president and/or people who want to continue to play the victim. But just like many claim the election of the current president emboldened racists to openly be racist, perhaps the election of the previous president emboldened those who suffer at the hand of discrimination to fight back. Just because you don’t experience racism doesn’t mean no one does. Just because you think you don’t say/do racist things, doesn’t mean no one does.At the end of the day, the flag and the anthem represent different things to different people. And for anyone to require that I stand for their idea of truth at the expense of mine is to say that their truth matters more. That, to me, is “All Lives Matter” all over again. It’s requiring that I be silent in my pain in deference to your truth and comfort.I have mixed feelings about the NFL’s protest. After the president’s name calling, the protest became about politics and ego. It seemed like a big “EFF YOU” to president for trying to tell them what to do with their business and their bodies. And while I believe the NFL’s show of solidarity had nothing to do with Kaepernick’s original protest, I find it revealing that even though the Dallas Cowboys chose to acquiesce to the claims of disrespect of the flag/anthem by standing during the anthem, there were still complaints. So, is it possible the anthem/flag aren’t the argument?I grew up knowing two anthems: “The Star Spangled Banner” and “The Negro National Anthem.” The latter is the anthem that many black Americans know. This anthem is about unity. It’s about acknowledging the horrible past we share and the victory of overcoming it. It’s about strength. It’s about liberty for everyone. Nowhere does it mention “not saving the slaves” or rockets and ramparts or war.What I mean to say is, to me, “The Star Spangled Banner” and flag do not represent our troops or their sacrifice or the greatness of our country. “The Negro National Anthem” does. The U.S. service uniform and the men and women themselves represent our country’s greatness.“The Star Spangled Banner” represents victory in war. And, unfortunately, I feel like people who look like me are still engaged in that war. The flag represents hope. It represents the good that our country could be but still isn’t. The flag represents an idea of true freedom for all.What you’re demanding is that I stand for your idea. And what I’m choosing is to kneel because of my reality. And, if you really want people to stop kneeling during the anthem and keep standing during the pledge to the flag, make a reality of the ideas they are supposed to symbolize.

Being Different

One major adversity I faced in life was simply being different from everyone else. I struggled with my identity because of my race. What was I? Where did my roots come from? Am I black? Am I white? Am I Indian?Let’s start from the very beginning. My parents are West Indian from the Island of Trinidad and Tobago. My dad is French Creole and white but on his birth certificate his was race was labeled Negroid. My mother is West Indian, which means her roots come from India.Being from the Caribbean, you are already considered a melting pot. When I was younger we lived in Brooklyn, New York, where you were embraced by many cultures and races. I blended in well! Not one soul looked at me but not one soul questioned where I was from, or what race I was.It wasn’t until I was 14, when we moved from the city to the Lone Star State, Texas that I felt different. I thought when we moved here everything was going to be perfect. New state, new friends, and new environment. I was wrong.When we moved here I was faced with racism and stereotypes. The main question I always got was, “What are you?” Are you Mexican? Wait you look Puerto Rican. No, you look Indian. Even in my own race I faced adversity. The black people would say you can’t be black because you have “good hair” and the white people would say you don’t look white, you are too dark. Even in the Indian communities, some people wouldn’t acknowledge me because I had both white and black in me. I wasn’t 100% Indian. That is when I started to become insecure about what I was.When I would tell my parents my concerns, they did what any other parent would do. They hugged me and told me the next time someone said something about my race to tell then I as a human being. I knew my parents meant well but that didn’t change the way I felt. I still had to face this cruel world every day.At the age of 17, I met a girl who was very similar to me. She was from the islands and also had a very diverse background. It was her that helped me overcome my insecurities. She told me being different is beautiful and I should embraced that melanin skin and that long, beautiful, curly hair. She said, “You were born to stand out; not be the norm.” That helped me through the most crucial years from adolescence to adulthood.Even with this new confidence and self-awareness, there’s one challenge I still face: marking my race on forms. Well, which box do I check? I can technically check more than one box. But they say you can only check one. Why did they have to remove the “other” box? That would have made life easier for me.I check “black” because that was the race I can be more identified as. Because my dad’s mother passed away when he was a baby, I didn’t get a chance to meet the white side of his family. So I was surrounded with many of my dad’s paternal side: the black side. Culturally, that’s what I am. The food I eat, the music I listen to, the experiences I’ve had.I think back to that melting pot in 1980s Brooklyn. For just a moment, before I moved to Texas, I was allowed to just be a human being without classifications and limitations. I remember how their words of comfort sometimes did nothing to make me feel better. And now, as a mother, I’m faced with having those same conversations with my kids. But that’s another story for another day.

The Token Asian

Growing up as the “Token Asian,” I never stopped to consider the jokes at my expense. Slant-eyes, always smelling like fish, Pacific Islander-whatever-you’re-all-the-same comments would fly above me and hover in a circle just above my head from the time I moved to a small East Texas town as a nine year old to my high school graduation.Imagine my surprise and shocked when I moved to Denton and into a very diverse university. I wouldn’t know what to classify Texas Woman’s. There were days where you could walk out into the quad and hear Christian music and days were Pride was happening in your face.I loved the atmosphere. Everything about TWU and all my time there will always have a special place in my heart.Save for one.I volunteered to cater an event at Texas Motor Speedway with some of my friends. We were supposed to just take food in and out of the suites overlooking the racetrack. In maybe one or two of these suites, I felt it: that thing that hovered above my childhood in East Texas. I felt it drop right into me.Now, this happened almost fifteen years ago, and I don’t recall what was said. But what’s important to this story, is how I felt. I felt looked down on. I felt dismissed. And whatever was said or wasn’t, it wasn’t the words that I’ve remembered. It was the connotation. The tone and the hatred in the parting look that came with it. That’s what has stayed with me for fifteen years. The full brunt of judgment and prejudices came at me. And I was angry.I wanted to yell at these rich people who looked down at the “hired help.” I wanted to tell them that we’re volunteers and all college educated. But also at the tip of my tongue, I wanted to denounce that I was the same in this “sea of brownness.”I’m Asian. I’m not Black. I’m not Hispanic.I wanted to be quick in my defense in showcasing that I was not to be lumped “with these people.”After, when we all drove home and compared our experiences, I felt shame. I was no better than the people who projected their hatred towards us. To them, we were all the same. If love is blind, perhaps, hatred is too.This is the point in my story: when I started to listen more to what my parents – and subsequently – the older generations in the Filipino communities, I learned racism isn’t just limited to black and white. My dad is racist. If you look long enough, you’ll find that a lot of older Asians are racist. Those are loaded statements and rewriting and editing this personal little essay has given me time to recount a million things over the course of my childhood. My “aha moment” wasn’t that I was oblivious but I was “groomed to be intolerant.” I have heard my dad tell racist jokes about different races – Blacks, Mexicans, and Native Americans. It was his “playfulness” and laughing at others’ expenses that may have shielded me from feeling ostracized. My dad’s jokes were limited to other people of color but never white. He wanted to make sure that we “stood out” from everyone else but “mixed in” with the white society. But that’s a different story for another day.I sat in the car with my friends and let the words and truth sink it. I was complicit in my silence. I was just as much in the wrong for taking that moment and twisting it in my head to where I was “okay” since I was “different.”But these are my friends. My friends who felt just as ostracized and just as hated for their skin color. My friends who have had to grow up in situations like these that left me shaking. My friends who experience the kind of hatred I was privileged to ignore.Looking back at my childhood and comparing it with theirs, I’m sure we all had the same experiences. In our friendship circle, there was a lovely display that would make the UN proud. My friends were Africans, South American, Mexican, white and black. But, being the very few Asians in our small town, my family instilled assimilation. My friends questioned their differences when they were growing up with racial tensions but never once were they told to “lose the accent,” or to “be in the background but stand out in your studies.” That’s incredibly admirable to stand proud of your culture and wave your flag, if you have to, and something that I’m embracing. I’m embracing my Filipino culture; which is sad for a thirty-five year old Philippines-born woman to say. I haven’t stepped foot in the Philippines since I was eleven! I’m relearning my culture. I’m learning about the history, the arts, and the current politically charged atmosphere that is happening there.I’m still the sole Asian in any company I keep – book clubs, small women’s fellowship and mama tribe - but I take my differences and similarities with humor. I’m still fortunate enough that I tend to be “blissfully” or “busily” unaware of the stares or voices around me. Once in a while, I’ll get someone who’ll give me a double take and I know they want to know where I’m from. So, I go ahead and supply it for them. It’s been my knee-jerk reaction since high school.And yes, there are days where I want to disappear into the background of sameness and wish that my children’s brown skin and almond shaped eyes wouldn’t be questioned. I don’t want to assimilate and lose my cultural identity. I don’t want to take a deep breath and automatically, within the first five minutes of meeting, tell you how and when my parents and I got here in this country.But I appreciate the question. It means I’ll never be the same. It means I’ll never blend in the background.So, take your assumptions about me and about the wonderful friends I keep.We’re not disappearing into the noise any time soon.To keep up with Leila, follow here on Facebook here and go to her website at www.leilatualla.com.

The American Way

I must admit I don’t think I ever felt different until I was about 7 years old. Prior to that, I had always been surrounded by people like me: Mexican Americans or Chicanos in South Texas. My parents rarely went outside their comfortable circle of family and friends in the small town where I grew up. Even when I was about 4 or 5 and we lived in San Antonio, we stayed in our (Mexican-American) area of the city. We all spoke Spanish and sometimes English. We were all brown skinned. And we were what would be considered poor today.I went to school for the first time in my hometown of Mathis, Texas where the majority of kids were Chicano/Mexican American. All the teachers were white, but it was just the way it was supposed to be. Our parents or adults in the Mexican-American community were mostly laborers; so, it was never questioned. We did not speak Spanish in school but that was just the way it was supposed to be, too. Although I never witnessed it, I remember hearing that we would be punished for speaking Spanish in school. We all followed the ‘rules.’ Teachers praised us mightily if we spoke English. I recall a teacher saying it was the American way to learn proper English. So, Spanish was a thing of the past for me, now? But when I was home, my grandmother always emphasized that I must never forget Spanish. Ever. No matter what anyone said.When I was in second grade we moved to Blue Mound, a suburb of Fort Worth. That is when I remember BEING different. I was the only Chicana kid in my elementary school. I was not discriminated against really. I was lucky. I mean my teacher was kind and I think she told the other kids that I was to be treated like everyone else.But one child did stare at me a long time when were in the cafeteria. He asked me, “Are you from New Mexico or Old Mexico?” I said I’m not from any Mexico. I am from Texas. I went to ask the teacher what he had meant but I don’t remember what she told me. I do remember she called the little boy to the head of the cafeteria table and gave him a ‘talking to,’ but I have no idea what she said. I also remember I hated my hands because they weren’t pretty and light skinned like the white girls in my school. I thought if I could just wash them often enough…. but no one ever told me that. I just remember feeling it.All of these memories would have been around 1965-1966 but the one memory that stands out - that made me feel ‘less than’ - was in the fourth grade. My friend from first grade (I’ll call her Betty) was half Italian, half Chicana. She and I befriended a little girl who was new to the school that year. Her name was Gretchen, I think. We would spend our recess playing together. I remember she could sing and her family could afford to take her to the movies. She had just seen The Sound of Music and sang all the songs to us and told us the story during recess.One day, she pulled Betty aside. I was no longer included at recess? I asked Betty what was the matter with Gretchen. She said Gretchen’s parents were from Germany and refused to let her play with me when they found out I was Mexican. Betty was ‘okay’ because she was half Italian. Gretchen never talked to me again.I was very hurt and cried. I was even more hurt because Betty chose Gretchen over me at school. That was the first time I felt different.

If It Looks Like a Duck...

I was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. My parents divorced when I turned five, and my mother, grandmother and I left Brooklyn and moved to the suburbs of Queens. We lived in a racially diverse neighborhood, it was about 1/3 Black, 1/3 Polish, and 1/3 Italian.  My mom (a recently converted Catholic) tried to enroll me in the nearby St. Joseph Elementary School but she was turned away because I didn’t speak Polish. (Hmmmmm!?)  So I was enrolled St. Pius V Catholic School (it was a bit further away, but it wasn’t the local public school where all the poor Black kids went) and thus I began my journey through private, Catholic education.Like most African-Americans, I experienced racial prejudice from a very young age. But unlike most of my brothers and sisters, the prejudice I remember was not directed at me. You see, I was not viewed as an ordinary Negro. I was blessed with a fairly high I.Q. and something very close to a photographic memory. Elementary school was enormously easy for me and I breezed through with a grade point average of 99. I was “a different kind of Negro!” At least, that’s what the nuns at St. Pius told me countless times. I was one of five Black kids in my elementary school class and I was constantly told that I was “a credit to my race.” (Unlike the other Black kids in my class? My school? My neighborhood? The city? The world?)I only learned about two Negroes in elementary school. These two men were also “credits to my race.”Booker T. Washington was a former slave who wrote a book titled “Up From Slavery.” That he was an educator, that he was the founder and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, that he was the most prominent and influential spokesman for Black Americans at the turn of the 19th century, these facts were left out of my “education.”I also learned that George Washington Carver was a “credit” because he developed more than 100 uses for the peanut. That his work helped revolutionized the agricultural economy of the South, that he was elected to Britain’s Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in 1916, that he was awarded the Spingarn Medal, that he turned down an invitation to work for Thomas A. Edison at a salary of more than $100,000 a year, that Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt visited him, and that his friends included Henry Ford and Mohandas Gandhi, these facts were also left out of my “education.” But I was left with the knowledge that he invented 100 uses for the peanut.Needless to say, based on the scant information I had on these two gentlemen, I was not impressed. The Negro race had clearly not accomplished much in the 100 years since emancipation.There was one other reference to people of African descent in my elementary education. Miss Veniola, would come to our classroom at least once a month with her little chord organ, and teach us music, songs from various cultures. It was through Miss Veniola that I learned some of the songs the happy slaves sang on the plantations. I learned that they worked hard during the day, but at night, they laughed and danced and played, and sang songs. It was an idyllic picture of a joyous life. And it filled me with shame.If only I had learned about Roy Wilkins, Charles Drew, Madame C.J. Walker, Benjamin Banneker, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Elijah McCoy, W.E.B. DuBois, Scott Joplin, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Phlliis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Bessie Coleman, Satchel Paige, Jesse Owens, and the list goes on. Perhaps, had I known of just a few of these people, and their accomplishments, I might have grown up proud of my Blackness instead of ashamed of it.I graduated from St. Pius V Elementary School and went on to St. Francis Xavier, a Catholic, Jesuit, military high school, where I was now one of five Black kids in the entire school. And still, a credit to my race. One day, during my Sophomore year, I was cutting a gym class with some of the other kids at Xavier, hanging out downstairs in the lockers smoking cigarettes. We heard a noise, and fearing discovery (which would probably have resulted in a paddling at the very least), one of the guys went to check it out. When he returned, we all asked what the noise was. He replied, “Nothing to worry about, just a couple of Ni---“ Cutting his sentence off abruptly, he then looked at me and said, “Sorry Dennis.”It took me a while to realize the implications of that remark. I began to see my world through different lens, a new filter. Turns out, I wasn’t a “different kind of Negro” after all. I was just another Ni--.But as the saying goes, better late than never.

Colored

The main reason I started The Echoes Blog was because I wanted us to share stories that might give us insight to how supremacy, prejudice, ignorance, untruths, and the dangers of inequality and disproportionate power run through the veins of our society and infect our humanity with hate and entitlement.Months ago I had this idea to ask my friends when they realized they were racially/ethnically different. I wondered if it was an event that revealed it to them or if it was just a realization over time. I wondered if they could pinpoint that moment, how they felt, and how it has impacted them through the passage of time.The first time I realized the importance of skin color, I was very young. My grandmother asked me what color my friend was and I said, “Peach…kinda like me.” So admittedly, I had some issues distinguishing colors. But the important thing here is that I paid absolutely no attention to race. She was my friend. I knew we were a little different, but not so much that it mattered to the detriment of our friendship.My grandmother told me, “No. You’re different. You’re black. She’s white.”It’s a strange memory, though fuzzy, to have at such a young age. I don’t remember how it affected me in that moment. But I do know that from then on, I noticed that I was the only black girl in my class; or, at least, one of very few.Years later, on a road to Arkansas to visit my great grandmother, my father pulled over at a gas station. My older sister and I got out, bounced into the gas station where we were allowed to pick one snack. Our seven/eight-year-old selves could hardly contain our excitement; and, after showing our treats to the cashier so Daddy could pay for them, we ran out the door, giggling all the way to the car. Our innocent laughter was cut short when a minute later he grabbed us both by the arm and very sternly told us to never, he repeated never, run out of a store. “You’re black,” he told us, “They’ll think you stole something.”And then there was the time I heard the word, “nigger.” As Daddy pulled our car into the apartment complex late one night, the family quiet and tired, a man from a balcony apartment yelled: “You’re a nigger.” I really had never been taught that word. My mother tried very hard to allow me my innocence without the mars of hate and prejudice. So I shouldn’t have known what it meant. But, something in the attitude of the way he said it told me the word was bad; ugly.Many of my non-white friends have stories like these. Some of them happened when they were four; some when they were fourteen. But they all remember that moment. It’s woven into the cloth of our existence. And we often shoulder the burden that our color often colors the way we are seen.When my friends have asked about white privilege, my short answer is: “It’s the privilege of not having one of these stories. Or, it’s the privilege of this story not being a warning, an omen, or a shadow of past ignorance and crystal ball of future hatred.”Listening to others share their stories about the first time they were told and/or treated like a minority was more than just interesting to me. It was educational. It showed me that the sting of racism is still a little different in the South. It showed that we could take each story and replace the race and/or ethnicity with another minority and it’s the same thing. It showed that, even though we often try to relegate these things to the past, children, ages fourteen and seventeen, still have similar stories. And it confirmed that the work we have to do is far from over. But the first stop is sharing our story and speaking our truth.For many, especially for minorities, it’s easy to see yourself as the protagonist of these stories. You read them and cast yourself as the supportive friend, the encouraging parent, or the discriminated against. But what if you read these stories and cast yourself as the antagonist? What if you look for the statements being said and ask yourself if you’ve ever said something like it?What if you made yourself out to be the bad guy in order to be a better person?I hope you’re enlightened by the September Series: “The first time I knew I was different…”

Live Hard or Live Smart

I made a late-night trip to Prairie View A&M University to drop off my son’s room keys that he had forgotten at home. We discovered the keys were missing just as we pulled onto Sandra Bland Drive, the new name of the street leading into Prairie View. After finding out that there is a no re-issue policy of keys from the administrative offices, I knew I was going to have to drive all the way home, pick up the keys, and drive back to Prairie View so he could have his keys that night. My wife rode back down with me to take the keys back.After dropping off the keys to my son, we went a couple of exits south and stopped at Bucee’s to get gas and refreshments. After the stop, we pulled back onto the freeway and were on our way back. I noticed that we passed a police car as we entered the freeway. After pulling onto the freeway, I got up to the speed limit and set my cruise control “at” the speed limit. I didn’t want any problems because we were in Waller County, the county where Sandra Bland was arrested and in whose county jail she had allegedly taken her own life.You could imagine my anger when I looked up and noticed police lights going behind me. I was very angry. I had just set my cruise control at the speed limit. I was angry because I felt like I was being stopped for something other than a speeding infraction. I was fuming mad; something I don’t normally experience, certainly during a traffic stop. I pulled over, let down my window and got out my insurance, registration, and license before the officer came up.I looked over and noticed it was a Hispanic officer. His ethnicity didn’t matter. I was still mad. He looked into the car and I gave him my license and insurance. He looked at them and gave them back to me.“Did you just stop at Bucee’s sir?” he asked.“Yes I did,” I answered with attitude. “Would you step out of the car sir?” he asked.“Here we go,” I thought to myself. I got out of the car. I walked around the car only to discover that after I got gas I had forgotten to take the pump out and put it back into the stand. It was late at night and I was very tired. I had pulled the pump and the hose from Bucees’s with my car when I had driven off and the pump and the hose were still hanging out of my gas tank!The officer and I started laughing. “Let’s go back and drop it off,” he said. I got back into my car, he followed me back to Bucee’s and got someone to come out and re-attach the pump and the hose. We laughed again, and this time we shook hands. He wished my wife and I a safe trip back to Dallas.I drove away thinking about my actions. I was seething angry when I was stopped. I had overreacted in this situation. I immediately remembered the rule I had given my son many times before. I would tell him, “I’ll take you being home and alive over being dead and right – every time. We can always go back, get a badge number and file a complaint, but I always want to you home safe. You are not a punk if you comply with and obey an officer. Quite the contrary, you are smart.” I realized I had broken my own rule. But I was thankful it hadn’t turned out any other way.It’s tough. How do you live - hard or smart? It’s a decision every man, particularly every black man, has to make at some point in their life. I was reminded that I still have to make better choices. I’ve been stopped so many times that I feel I know how to handle myself in those situations, but I was reminded that I, in the moment, could have brought about a much less than ideal outcome.    God help me to keep my cool the next time I get stopped. Having a chip on my shoulder, though justified in my mind, is not a good place to start. I should have kept my head and worked to de-escalate the situation. It is always better to be safe than sorry. I want to be safe and home over being dead and right. My family needs me – and I want to be here for and with them as long as I can. 

What's Goin' On?

©Matthew Ransdell 2015 All Rights Reserved.I do not own the rights to the musicPlease do me a favor and close your eyes. I’m completely serious you can trust me just close your eyes I’ll tell you when to open themNow think. Think back to the days when you energizer bunny-ed your way through playtime. Think about the times when toys, barbies, and recess were the ingredients needed to make endless blissBubble gum, bubble gum in a dish. How many pieces do you wish?Laughing, running, panting, playing, resistant to stopping. We can’t stop being happy. We won’t stop being happy. Throwing a fit at whoever decides to get in their way. Please keep your eyes closed and think.Think back to the days where your biggest concern was what your mother was going to pack you for lunch. When you would count the seconds until you could high five your best friend in homeroom class. And on Saturdays when you would wake up like it was a mission just to watch cartoons: Doug, Recess, PepperAnn, Voltron, Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.Please excuse me as I turn up the volume as I sit hypnotized losing track of any sense of time because back then what was time? Only breaking to eat my Cinnamon Toast Crunch.Please keep your eyes closed. And think back to the times when your night-light played the hero at bedtime, when passing a note in class was like an Oceans Eleven mission and when making eye contact with your crush for just one second felt like eternity.Please open your eyes.Can you remember? Can you taste it? Can you feel it? Can you see it? What happened to the days when you would fall asleep on the couch and miraculously wake up in your bed having no earthly idea how you got there? What happened? What changed? At what age did you realize that having your heart broken was just a repetitive offense you had to get used to? At what age did you realize that you were afraid more of inadequacies than you were of monsters? At what age did you realize that no matter bad or how good you looked it was out of your control and society was going to use it as an excuse to imprison you into a category that was going to be nearly impossible to escape from. Let’s just pray that you made it into the right one.At what age did you realize, did you know, did you have to understand that waking up tomorrow is never going to be promised?Every day above ground is a good day. There’s truth there.And no matter how much you take each breath for granted, this world will remember your absence once it dissolves into the atmosphere. The only thing you leave behind is your story. And your story is nothing more than the choices you make. Each letter, each page, littered with the way you made other people feel. There’s truth there. No trust but truth there.  So how do make other people feel? Because that’s you. What do you do? What can you do? What will you do when a reality that liposuctions the beauty out of your imagination making you shed your creativity as if it were just unnecessary fat. Just make it burn because your soul has reached its maximum capacity. There’s no more room and no vacancy for your boundless love there.Now let’s put all of our cards out on the table and be honest with each other for just one second.Fair has never been in our vocabulary. This world has been bursting at the seams with injustice since its conception. The scale tipping toward the people with power instead of the people with passion. So good luck being different because you were the underdog before you were even thought of but it doesn’t have to be that way.You know, they say poetry can change the world. That words can sprout wings and fly. That the structures can move the masses and the thoughts can changes lives.But we’re passed that now. We’ve done it. We’re passed that now.And I don’t write poetry. I write prayers. So, Dear God, allow me to face hate and respond ten times louder with love. Dear God, allow us to remove those preconceived bull’s-eyes found plastered on the backs of the oppressed. And Dear God, let us regain our humanity because I don’t know if we remember that we used to have one.You see, we weren’t born to hate; we were taught to. In a world where justice seems like a myth and equality seems like fiction; when the air is overwhelmingly poisoned with oppression, I realize that I…I can’t breathe.Matt is not only an accomplished actor and poet, he is also a sought after motivational speaker. Catch Matt on Instagram here or his youtube channel here. 

Toxic Masculinity

Wikipedia describes “toxic masculinity” as certain socially destructive standards or behavior among men in contemporary American and European society that encourage domination of others, devaluation of women, and emotional stoicism. Wiki goes on to say that certain aspects of this type of masculinity describe the type of men who exhibit misogynistic, homophobic, and violent tendencies. There are more attributes, but what’s key is that men who suffer from this particular affliction tend to aim their toxicity at women.I chose the above definition because it seemed to capture what appears to some to be an uptick in behavior that often results in women ending up on the receiving end of some type of violence; both verbal and physical. I say some because, as a woman, this phenomenon doesn’t feel new. There are plenty of news articles, social media posts, and real-life experiences shared during girl talk that detail scenarios in which, as a result of responding negatively to a man’s advances, the woman was either harassed until she acquiesced or, upon refusing to acquiesce, ended up being verbally or physically assaulted. It comes in many forms, but for some, it is more recognizable as domestic and sexual violence against women.Not surprisingly, I am interested in the root cause of this toxic behavior because I have been on the receiving end of a number of these encounters. The most recent one had me silently praying all the way to the door of my job’s secured building. I was praying that security could see the man following me on camera, just in case law enforcement needed to identify him. You see, he ignored my polite declination to give him my number. I then resorted to the standard: “I have a boyfriend” line; you know, because if I belong to another man, he can accept my disinterest. Did that work? No. He proceeded to question my boyfriend’s manhood, because “if he were a real man, I wouldn’t be walking from my train stop to my job alone.” He then insisted, again, that I give him my number. Just as I was about to give him my phone number to be rid of him, he lost interest and walked away.Let me tell you, before that moment, the anxiety rising within was palatable. Not because I’m irrationally afraid of strange men asking me for my number, but because he clearly wasn’t taking “no” for an answer. I’ve dealt with guys like that. They are the type of guy you give your real number to instead of a fake one. You give the real one because he will likely test its authenticity in front of you. No need to incur additional aggressive behavior. It’s easier to block after the fact.While I glanced furtively in his direction as I continued on to my building door, I recalled the many young women who ended up murdered in the street because they said no to the advances of a strange man; or worse, said no to someone they know and have a relationship with. Rejection of a man’s advances is usually the impetus for the harassing behavior and/or subsequent outburst in verbal or physical violence is at the core of toxic masculinity. There have been some very recent and horrifying examples in the news lately. For example the “Facebook Live murderer” who allegedly initiated his shooting spree after his girlfriend of several years broke off their relationship. After taking the life of a man he didn’t know, he blamed his decision on his girlfriend. I’m sure you can imagine what happened next in this age of online bullying. She, of course, was blamed as if she had anything to do with his inability to accept rejection.What I find equally alarming is that the number of women subjected to this abuse in the more recent months has been overwhelmingly black, with black male assailants. As a black woman, I don’t need another hill to climb or battle to fight. I already experience racism at the intersection of my gender; now I have to fear the men I encounter that look like me as well!   The “Facebook Live murder” was a black man; his girlfriend is a black woman. After his girlfriend broke up with him, he took the life of a grandfather, father, and husband.The Houston surgeon, who was killed in her home allegedly in front of her child, was a black woman; her murderer, was her black husband.The San Bernardino school shooter was a black man who failed to convince his black wife to return home. According to her parents, she left due to alleged domestic violence. He drove to her school, fatally wounded his estranged wife and injured 2 children before turning the gun on himself. I bring up the race of the assailants and the victims not to single any one race out, but to shine a light on the fact that toxic masculinity isn’t exclusive to certain kinds of people. These stories strengthened my desire to start a discussion, because these women look like me. They could be me.This kind of knee-jerk reaction to rejection cannot continue to go on unchecked. There needs to be a paradigm shift; one in which women and men are taught that women have more value than being an accessory to men. We are more valuable than something that submits to the whims of men. We have value. Period. We should address rape culture; where, among other things, women are blamed for the independent actions of men based upon how they dress or how they respond to sexual advances. Let’s cease congratulating men on their hyper-sexuality, while simultaneously slut shaming the women they’re with. Ultimately, I think it will begin and end with men (and women) respecting the choices and decisions of women and their bodies. 

When I Woke Up

I was first introduced to the play Br’er Cotton by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm at Kitchen Dog Theater’s New Works Festival as a reading in May of 2016. I thought the play was fantastic, visually stunning, very special and yet extremely challenging. When Kitchen Dog Theater’s Co-Artistic Directors, Tina Parker and Chris Carlos, decided to produce Br’er Cotton as a Mainstage New Works Festival Play to be performed in June of 2017, I was thrilled and looked forward to seeing it in full production. But about a week after the announcement, Tina and Chris approached ME to direct Br’er Cotton. WELL, it had been many years since I directed a full-length play. I had directed in the past and LOVED it however, my acting career has been my “lucky charm” since I graduated college. With my schedule as a company member at two theatres, I could only squeeze in directing yearly staged readings to satisfy my love for directing.So, at this time, not only was I facing two very challenging acting roles in plays, now they were asking me to direct a FULL STAGE PLAY that called for a kitchen floor to sink throughout the play and a tree to appear in the middle of the kitchen floor halfway through the play AND stay for the duration! I was overwhelmed by this and informed Tina and Chris, “I’ll get back with you.”As we all know, since 2013, America has been inundated monthly, if not weekly, by many black men being shot and killed by police officers. It has been visible on social and news media. And still those officers have been exonerated on a large majority of these cases. But with respect to the play, June 2016 went by with me telling Tina and Chris I was still collating.Then, in July 2016, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were both shot within a week of each other. There were peaceful protests being conducted all over the country; one took place on July 7 in Downtown Dallas. I was supposed to go but couldn’t make it. July 7, 2016 was a day that changed my life. That day, the peaceful protest for these unjust acts ended in terror and tragedy, right here in my hometown. As many, I felt upset, hurt, angry, and, most of all, helpless.It was right then and there I decided this play Br’er Cotton, MUST be done and I must do it. The best way I could start to eliminate this helplessness was the only way I know how: through my art. This play speaks to so much of what is happening right this very minute and elicits much needed conversation and starts to heal the state of tragedy we are facing in our country. I forgot about the sinking kitchen floor and a tree, which grows in the kitchen. And never mind the acorns and a space bag that fall from that tree. I needed to do this play!I have been silent for many years. I have never voiced my opinions about all the injustices that have been published in the media. But the Dallas Ambush woke me up. I could no longer be silent. SO, I told Chris and Tina that I would do this play!So what does this mean to me? The most important thing about this play is the play itself. It is so well constructed. Br’er Cotton takes place in Lynchburg, Virginia on the former site of a cotton mill in an impoverished neighborhood. In the home lives a 14-year–old, militant boy that has been troubled by all the recent killings of young black men, like him. And he is determined to “wake up the zombies” by inciting riots at school and online. He lives with his grandfather and mother who are deeply affected by his rebellious activities. During it all, the family home literally sinks into the cotton field and only the son notices.I have read a lot of plays about black men being killed by cops. But this play was different. It tells not only of perspective of racism in a black family, but also shows a generational view.My father died when I was very young and I lived with my grandparents. So there were three generations in one household. It was during the ‘60’s when the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King Jr. were on the news daily. I remember the dinner-table the conversations. Even as a youngster, I found them fascinating. My grandparents were for peaceful protests and were great admirers of Martin Luther King Jr. But my uncle, who was closer to my age and like a brother, was for a more aggressive approach to racism like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. So, the generational images and relationships in the play hit very close to my life growing up.What I wanted the audience to leave the theater thinking about was the racial chaos and divide that we are facing in this world today. This is not just an African American, Indian or Hispanic problem. And we cannot resolve it overnight or even within the millennial generational lifespan. But we MUST understand each other as individuals. If a person only associates with a certain race, they need to make a point to get to know someone of a different cultural background.The message should affect white and black audience members the same; however, it won’t. At the end of the play the 14-year-old Black man shoots a white officer and most blacks feel vindicated as whites felt a largely guilt ridden.In late April of this year, Jordan Edwards, a young boy in Balch Springs, Tx was shot and killed by a white officer in Balch Springs, Texas. He was the same age as Ruffrino, the young man in the play. This occurred not far from where I live and happened days before we opened the play. Yet again, I was reminded how vital this play is.Yes, this is an African-American story. But it’s an African-American story about an American problem. And the only way to begin to heal and help is to talk to one another and learn, like I did, to no longer be silent.Rhonda Boutte answers a few questions about the artistry in her activism. Click here to read about some of her designing/directing decisions and how she used some of those to convey certain themes.Also, you can find Ms. Boutte on stages with Undermain Theatre and Kitchen Dog Theatre.