What are your intersections?
I am a Black, cis, heterosexual, Christian female born and raised in the South.
What is your background?
I was born in Norfolk, VA on the naval base, but was raised in rural southern Arkansas for the majority of my life. I lived with my mom the majority of the time, but spent a significant amount of time with my dad on the weekends and summers, who only lived 45 minutes away.
My mom was a hard worker, but we had significantly less in her home than I did with my father, who remarried fairly early and had two incomes. During the school week, I was poor (by no stretch of the definition) and on the weekends and summers, I was middle class for Black families in the south. Even though both of my parents asked my sister if we wanted to live with my dad, aside from my bratty teenage years, I never really had the desire to so. Being poor didn’t bother me all that much.
I loved how simple my life was with my mom. I loved how intuitive she was to our needs. And I loved how caring and generous she was with others who had even less than we did. She was constantly stretching everything we had to help others. She’s truly one of my heroes. One of my greatest inspirations.
How do your intersections affect you?
Despite the difference in my parents’ socioeconomic backgrounds, both of them were super intentional about immersing us in Black culture. I was never really taught to prioritize whiteness growing up. Even Santa Clause was Black in my house. I was definitely taught that I couldn’t be as “bad” behavioral-wise as white kids, but I was never taught that I needed to be twice as good to succeed. I think that is due in large part to my parents lack of experience outside of their geographical areas. Neither of them went to college. And my dad’s only real professional experience outside of Arkansas was in the US Navy. And even though race and white supremacy permeates everything, military rankings for the enlisted wasn’t really something that seemed less than objective to him. So neither of them had reason to know or understand (and still really don’t) the complex ways in which these systems have affected our community outside of slavery and Jim Crow.
College was a huge eye-opening experience for me, however. I was so much poorer than the majority of my classmates. My parents had no clue how to support college-aged me and I honestly didn’t know what to ask for. In a way, I felt like I outgrew them. They stopped being able to understand what my life was like and it was lonely.
I struggled navigating a majority white academic institution. For the longest time, I only befriended other Black students (many of whom are still great friends today), but even among them, I was always the person with the least resources and the smallest support system back home. I felt isolated and like no one really understood how being a first generation college student actually compounds one’s racial experience on college campuses. That being dark-skinned Black woman, poor, and from the more rural area of our state, I had to work extra hard to be taken as seriously as other Black students (who were already busting their butts to be seen on a majority white campus). That those experiences often led me to being tokenized by white people when I was ever actually given a seat at the table. (Exist, but don’t speak). That white people made a million assumptions about who I was, how I thought, what my interests were, etc. and any deviation from them just meant I would be denied more agency by those looking to benefit from a narrative they NEEDED me to have. It was exhausting.
I spent those years learning hard lessons about capitalism, wealth gaps, and what white supremacy actually looks like. I quickly learned that white supremacy paid no respect to political affiliation, income level, geography, age, or gender and that it could be perpetuated by anyone (academia being a prime example). Understanding those things, among others, is how I’ve become the unapologetic Black woman who talks about white supremacy today.
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#TWintersectionalfridays: Space to explore intersections of identity and systems of oppression. Space to tell your story. Space to listen. Every Friday of 2019. // Week 12/52. 'L.' / 8x8 in. / mixed media on paper