Jackal

by Erin E. Adams

Danger didn’t need a place to hide, it preferred to fester. First it would smile and bring you German chocolate cake. Then it would wait out in the open on your front porch until it felt good and ready.

Danger for Black girls was different. It didn’t obey the boundaries of stories. For them, it was always real.

Much is expected of me, my friends, my life, every second I’m here, because my life was never mine. Instead, it’s a summation of her sacrifices.

As a kid, Melissa shielded herself from racism the way most white people did. She held on to a well-rehearsed lesson from after-school specials in the 1990s: I don’t see color. Mel would say that instead, she saw me. Teenage Liz loved that. From what Caroline said last night, Mel is still avoiding the truth: Being blind to color only makes you blind.

She didn’t need to be an adult to know that sad men are the most dangerous.

Myths are as much a part of the slipstream of Black life as joy. Yes, Black folks are masters of joy. Trauma isn’t the only thing carried in DNA. Blackness, like any Golden Fleece, is both a birthright and what lies at the end of a quest.

Over time, I’ve learned to suspect men who are kind without reason. No one operates from the goodness of their hearts.

One drop in this country is all it takes. Being a Black girl is inhabiting a cruel riddle: Your beauty is denied but replicated. Your sexuality is controlled but desired. You take up too much space, but if you are too small, you are ripped apart. Despite the wash of it, that’s one thing you can always count on whiteness to do: destroy a threat.

If there’s one thing fear can do, it’s make a beast out of a shadow. It turns us all into monsters.