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The final stretch to finding me would be allowing that eight-year-old girl in, actively inviting her into every moment of my current existence to experience the joy she so longed for, letting her taste what it means to feel truly alive. The destination is finding a home for her. A place of peace where the past does not envelop the Viola of NOW, where I have ownership of my story.
It was radical acceptance of my existence without apology and with ownership.
Man, I’d rather go ten rounds with Mike Tyson than face some inner truths that have lain dormant.
But this inner battle, this inner fight I couldn’t throw.
I still see my younger self so clearly from that fateful day in my therapist’s office. She stands up, in tears, on a mound of snow. Pissed off, she shouts, “Bitch!!! I’m not going to be swallowed!”
“He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear with almost any ‘how.’” —FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
There is an emotional abandonment that comes with poverty and being Black. The weight of generational trauma and having to fight for your basic needs doesn’t leave room for anything else. You just believe you’re the leftovers.
We weren’t interested in the softball set. We just wanted to win. We wanted to be somebody. We wanted to be SOMEBODY.
“The invisibility of the one-two punch that is Blackness and poverty is brutal.”
But she said this was a teacher who simply never liked her because she always got straight As. She was the same teacher who told me in second grade that Black people could not read or write at all when they were slaves.
told Deloris I was sorry that happened to her and we didn’t help her. She said, “That’s okay, Viola. That was the day I decided to be a teacher. It devastated me so much that I didn’t want another kid to go through what I went through.”
It’s funny that with the complaints about hygiene, no one ever asked us about our home environment. No one asked us if we were okay or if anything was wrong. No one talked to us. There was a lack of intentional investment in us little Black girls.
A few people would drop what they called useful affirmations like, “Work hard,” “Stay in school and do good,” “Be great,” “Behave and don’t get in trouble.” There was an expectation of perfectionism without the knowledge of emotional well-being.
How do I get to the mountaintop w...
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You’re expected to be clean not celebrated. The invisibility of the one-two punch that is Blackness and poverty is brutal. Mix that with being hungry all the damn time and it becomes combustible.
I didn’t know the butterflies that were ever present in the pit of my gut were actually massive anxiety.
The true me was so trapped inside, like that demon inside of Regan in the movie The Exorcist. When Regan is tied to the bed to keep from harming herself and her body is racked by scars from this powerful demon, her mom’s secretary comes barging in the room and as clear as day, slowly but deliberately, the words “HELP ME” form on her belly. The sweet, kind, authentic, precocious Regan fighting to be released is still alive. Well . . . that’s what I felt like. Imprisoned and possessed by outside forces that were way more powerful than me.
created a phantom to survive.
Everyone laughed when the images came up and the voice-over said, “Black people or slaves at this time were illiterate. That means they couldn’t read or write.” The kids laughed and whispered, “You niggas can’t do anything.”
I got up the courage to ask, “Miss, it’s not true, is it? Black people could read and write? They could, couldn’t they?” She shook her head sadly and said, “No. I’m sorry, honey. They couldn’t.” I left with my head down. She never explained to me or to the class that it was illegal during slavery to teach the enslaved to read and write. It was a way to keep them subjugated.
I held on to what I had, all that I had, the team effort with my older sisters. That preserved me. We were a girl-posse, fighting, clawing our way out of the invisibility of poverty and a world where we didn’t fit in. The world was our enemy. We were survivors. Until another squad member was introduced. She needed protection that we had no weaponry for.
ain’t never found no place for me to fit. Seem like all I do is start over. It ain’t nothing to find no starting place in the world. You just start from where you find yourself.” —AUGUST WILSON
“May you live long enough to know why you were born.” —CHEROKEE BIRTH BLESSING
We were cut off welfare, because they found out that my father was still living with us and he was making a salary. It was not a living wage, but it was a salary.
The throwing me out of class was all because he saw me. He saw what was in me.
It was now time for me to, as I’ve heard Black people say so many times, “shit or get off the pot.” So, I shit.
Free from the chains of my excuses, I was handling my business and exercising my agency, instead of sitting around doing nothing. And claiming that agency was a win in and of itself.
These kids were in their bodies, confident or at least good pretenders, and rowdy. I was none of those things.
Afterward, it seemed that everyone wanted to “know” me. Everyone loves a winner.
If I created a fable of my life, a fantasy, I see myself finally meeting God, gushing, crying, thanking the Almighty for the accolades, a fabulous husband, beautiful daughter, my journey from nothing to Hollywood, awards, travel. I can clearly see the Lord’s face, staring at me, taking me in and saying, “You never thanked me for creating you as YOU.”
“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” —THOMAS MERTON
“Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.” —RAY BRADBURY
To actors who say, “Oh, I don’t care, I’m not going to compromise myself artistically, even if I have to live in poverty,” I say, “You’ve never lived in poverty. If you’ve ever been poor, as a child or adult, it’s no joke.”
Every year, I would try to squeeze myself into every project and every character. I thought I had to. Corsets and huge European wigs that never fit over my braids.
Listening to classmates “ooh” and “aah” over the beautiful costumes and imagining how awesome life would be back in the 1780s. I kept wanting to scream it. “Shit!!! I’m different than you!! If we went back to 1780, we couldn’t exist in the same world! I’m not white!”
make every aspect of your Blackness disappear. How the hell do I do that? And more importantly, WHY??!!! None of my counterparts had to perfect Jamaican, southern, urban dialect to be considered excellent. “I am BLACK!!! I’m...
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We gasped! Kris World and I were coming from a school where we were being classically trained to become auteurs and we were witnessing it in front of our eyes. This was genius. This was art! Expression that is born out of the necessity of ritual to navigate life.
Juilliard’s academic approach did not connect the work to our lives. It missed the true potency of artistry, which is that it shifts humanity. Art has the power to heal the soul.
They didn’t want to hear about what I wanted to become. They wanted to hear about me. Just me. They would squeal, laugh, and clap when I told them the most inconsequential detail about me, like the day Danielle was born.
In The Gambia, to have a child is the greatest blessing. When you couldn’t, the belief was that God did not hear your deepest wish and had passed you by. The intent is to make as much noise as possible so God can hear you in heaven and pour down a blessing. The noise stopped and I looked around at the faces of the women smiling, laughing, screaming in manic desperation. They were trying to wake God up. I wept.
“Yes, chile! That’s right. There’s a party going on right here because I’m dancing to the music of the madness in me. That’s why every time I walk down the street, my hips sashay from side to side because I’m dancing to the music of the madness in ME! And here all this time I thought we had given up our drums. But now still got ’em. They’re here. In my walk, my dress, my style, my smile, and my eyes. They’re inside here connecting me to everything and everyone that ever was. So . . . honey don’t try to label or define me, cuz I’m not who I was ten years ago or ten minutes ago. I’m all of that
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found the party inside me. The celebration that needs to happen to combat the pain and trauma of memory. I found that there is no creating without using you.
I left Africa fifteen pounds lighter, four shades darker, and so shifted that I couldn’t go back to what I was.
I was always on the outside of Juilliard because I wasn’t on the inside of me.
In Africa, there is the equivalent of every “classical” instrument known to man and it predates any European instrument. There was a “technical” proficiency attached to drumming, dance, music, storytelling. Why is it “limiting” to play Black characters but white actors are “versatile” playing white characterizers? Why do I have to be small, willowy, and lighter than a paper bag to be sexual? I’m playing a character. It’s not porn. I was sold lies for two years and the worst part is that I believed it because I couldn’t combat it with anything else.
wasn’t weighed down with speech, voice, and all that I had been taught that was drowning me. I heeded the saying, “Stop making love to something that’s killing you.”
“Girl, get up! Girl, get your fight back! Girl, get your power back! Girl, start acting like you are a King’s daughter and there has always been a crown attached to your head. Even when I was sick, I was still His! Even when I was dead, I was still His. Do you know who I am?” —SARAH JAKES ROBERTS
He thought what I did was wrong, and yet there was every probability that he wouldn’t be there for me or the baby.
Once again in my life, I had to rely on the Santa Claus theory to get through major, life-changing obstacles. I was always asked to rely on miracles.
was a perfect reminder that as much as I thought I had evolved into a mature woman, I hadn’t. There was no escaping brutal life accidents that can s...
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