Meeting Myself at the Border
I’ve known I was Black as long as I’ve known I was alive. That is not an exaggeration. I was born in Baltimore, a city where 65% of the residents were Black. It’s also about 45 minutes away from D.C., which is affectionately known by Black DMV residents as “Chocolate City”. Blackness was quite literally all around me, and this reality reflected itself daily in my early life. My mom taught me to read using picture books that had children who looked like me on the cover. The walls in my nana’s house were lined with artwork depicting scenes of smoky jazz clubs and First Sundays alike. In school, all the kids arrived at class each morning eager and shiny-faced; our parents remained hyper-vigilant in the fight against ACS (Ashy Child Syndrome).
Blackness has always been integral in how I understood and navigated the world. Of course, this isn’t to say that I lived my formative years devoid of racism and racist experiences. I still grew up with an acute awareness of how my race affected the world’s perception of me. Even still, it was much easier to find my space in this world as a Black person because of how I came up. I felt like I had a guidebook of sorts even though Blackness wasn’t (read:isn’t) celebrated in the outside world. For my sexuality, however, I had no guide or rules other than: don’t be gay.
The first time I heard the word “lesbian”, I was six. I was at a family member’s home and they were watching a tv show about matchmakers who found partners for high-profile Black people. I asked the family member who was watching what a lesbian was and they told me, simply, “a woman who is attracted to other women”. At that point in my life, all of the adults that I knew were (presumably) straight, so I thought that was my only option. But now, I had witnessed a woman who looked like me expressing attraction to women and finding love, all in under 60 minutes. I was dazzled. The next day, I went to school prepared to spread the good news. I asked every kid within a 10-foot radius if they knew what a lesbian was and when they didn’t (almost none of them did), I’d proudly recite the definition given to me from the prior evening. This continued for most of the day until a teacher overheard me and called me to her desk.
“Stop going around and repeating that word to the other kids.”
“What word?”
“You know what word I’m talking about. Stop saying it or I’ll call your parents.”
I felt all the blood in my tiny body rush to my face. I nodded my head and quickly wiped away the tears forming in my eyes. The embarrassment of being publicly chastised coupled with the fear of being punished by my parents solidified one thing in my mind- being a lesbian was somehow shameful, punishment-worthy, and to be kept to oneself. And so, like many queer youths, I pushed this discovery down. Throughout my adolescence, I convinced myself that the feelings I had weren’t real. I cloaked my sexuality in shame and denial, hoping that it would disappear altogether. As I looked to trusted community members for guidance, I found myself met with silence. And shame. And homophobia. And while I had openly queer friends in high school, only a handful were Black. And none of them were Black girls. Everywhere I looked, it became clear that girls who loved like me could not be accepted in our community.There was no space for me. There was no space for intersectionality, only assimilation.
Now, as I think back on how I found pride in being Black, I can’t help but wish I had that same support for my sexuality. My love of Blackness is innate; it was rooted in the tradition, joy, and resilience I saw in the community around me. My Black elders taught me to be unapologetically proud of my Blackness. But my pride in being queer has been hard-earned. I did not find the support I longed for until well into my adult years. To this day, I have to remind myself that I am allowed to be proud of this identity. But I wonder how much farther along I’d be if I felt free to express all parts of myself as soon as I understood what they were. Though I’ll never have the answer to that question, I know that having pride in being Black AND Queer is something I’ll never let go of. In a world that wants to silence me, it’s imperative that I choose to bask in the truth of who I am. I can set down shame and cast fear aside to take up my rightful place in my community. As a child, I deserved to see all parts of myself reflected (and accepted) in the world around me. As an adult, I am choosing to be a part of that reflection for young(er) people that are coming into their own. Whether finding your pride is effortless or onerous, it is yours and no one can take that from you.