#111 - Modern Segregation

Today’s words: Amend, Elite, Use, Define

Word count: 194

Completion time: 27 minutes

Summary: Representation from a young age matters.

--

She knows how to talk

But not how to use her voice

She knows how to walk

But not how to prevent others

From walking over her

She knows how to add, subtract, divide

But the collision caused by the division

Of black versus white is something

No child can fight...alone

Children will copy what they see

Like to be whatever stars are on TV

But it’s the elite who choose who to use

On the big screen in Vue.

...Take 2

I’ll amend what I said

and begin with this instead:

When that child came home one night

She said, “Mummy, I want to be white.”

“Child, why?”

“White people are beautiful.”

Who put this in her head?

Who sat down with her on their lap

And told her she wasn’t all that?

No-one needed to.

It doesn’t need to be explicit

For someone to exhibit self-loathing

If beauty is all around and it’s wearing white

The other colours don’t shine as bright

The dictionary can define ‘beauty’ and it won’t have a race

But nearly every beautiful face we see looks the same to me

And barely any will look like me

#90 - For A Black Girl

Today’s words: Flange, Tibia, Scrabble, Special

Word count: 421

Completion time: 30 minutes

Summary: A little girl realises early in her life that being black is not the same as being white

--

Gracie would sometimes wonder no-one in school that looked like her. It didn’t occur to her until she was around eight-years-old, when someone in the art lesson had asked for a ‘skin colour’ colouring pencil. Her fingers shot to the light pink implement and she took a look at the skin on the back of her hand; if that was ‘skin colour’, then what about her skin? And, how did she know which colour the boy had meant? Who taught her that? It certainly hadn’t been her teachers.

When she reached eleven, she was sent to a private school for high achievers (“special school for my special girl” her mum would sometimes sing). The building was beautiful – light grey stone surrounded by patches of ivy, royal blue roofs, and a cream and grey pebbled driveway that led up to the heavy oak doors like a red carpet to an awards ceremony. She felt grand, and yeah, pretty darn special...but that didn’t last very long.

Once again, Gracie was one of the only black children in school, and the only one in most of her classes, but this time, the kids were very aware of it.

It started off with looks, whispers behind hands, fake smiles, a small, easy diffusible scrabble in the yard, until one day she was elbowed at the top of a staircase which caused her to fall. Hard. Not only did she break her tibia, but her arm and a few teeth, too.

The last thing she heard before unconsciousness took over was that she should go back to the jungle and join the ugly flange of baboons where she belonged.

Bruises fade, cuts heal, bones fuse back together...but those words stayed with her until adulthood, occasionally making a prominent appearance when she descended a flight of stairs or scrutinized her flared nostrils in the mirror of her dresser.

When she recovered, she wished more than ever to be white; to be white meant to be normal, beautiful...something that she thought she could never achieve. She could google ‘How to make skin whiter’ and, ‘Bleach for black skin’ all she wanted but she would never look like the girls that everyone seemed to find most beautiful.

When mainstream society tells you that you’re unattractive, or that you’re attractive with ‘for a black girl’ as a disclaimer...it can make you feel like you’ll never be good enough.

You feel you’ll never amount to anything unless you shed your skin and pray for a lighter one to take its place.

#49 - Now You See It

Today’s words: Sign, Knock Kneed, Ray, Burier

Word count: 350

Completion time: 1 hour

Summary: Some prejudice you just can’t avoid no matter what

As soon as some people are born, a grave is dug.

Naturally, the baby is oblivious to this, and sometimes the parents won’t know either, but still the burier keeps on digging; they dig in the snow, the rain, even in the height of summer when a small ray of sun is enough to peel skin away from uncovered limbs. It’s an arduous task but they don’t stop until it looks the grave’s big enough to erase a body altogether.

Knock kneed and panting like a dog in heat, the task is done. Wait. But, how long? As long as it takes. It could only be a year or two, but hopefully it’s more.

As the child grows up, they might start to feel a little empty inside, depending on who they associate with or how strong they are. They’ll put a hand to their chest just to check, but everything appears to be in working order. Shrugging it off, they continue with their lives until the pressure weighs down.

It starts with dirty looks.

Nasty words.

Maybe a few shoves.

And it escalates

Impossible to escape

Are you gay or are you straight?

Never mind that, what about your race?

You look a disgrace, don’t look me in the face

An eyesore to the core. Go on, get away from this place!

Then they see it. They see their own grave. Sprint as they might, they can’t run; their fate’s been decided from day one. What can they do to change it? Nothing. This is not something that can be changed like a bloody plaster.

So they try to fight, they run, but because they’re too focused on getting away, they fall into that oppressive hole with such swiftness that you’d consider supernatural interference if you had seen them go.

The sign planted in the dirt differs with each person: gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, asexual, queer, pansexual, disabled, too fat, too thin, person of colour...there’s a whole set that the burier likes to keep, and it’s growing a little more every day.

Now you see it,

Now you don’t.

#46 - The Black Character

Today’s words: Instruct, Fiction, Increase, Juvenile 

Word count: 518

Completion time: 59 minutes

Summary: It’s possible to write a black character without making them a Black Character

--

Oh hey, I see that you’ve thought me up as a black male character. That’s cool and all, as long as you make me a person and not some cookie-cut character that you’ll find all over the news, in a majority of films, and various other public media sources and works of fiction. 

Before we go any further, I’m not having at go at you at all, I’m thankful; you’re my creator, you decide what I do and don’t do, whether I’m a ‘good guy’ or not, you have my life at your fingertips...but you’d better be careful – that pen is a loaded gun that you think is safe until you blow someone’s brains out. It might happen by accident, or even on purpose because you assume that almost all black guys stick to certain personalities, talk a certain way, or dress in a fashion that may as well be the Black Guy Uniform. Let’s flip it around a little so you can see what I’m getting at – how many ‘white guy’ stereotypes are there, in general? 

When I think ‘white guy’, nothing instantly comes to mind that would fit a stereotype, all I see is a white guy (who for some reason is wearing a suit but I wouldn’t say a suit is stereotypical to a white male, but maybe it is?). However, when I think ‘black guy’, my mind takes a negative turn, it thinks of thugs in gangs, delinquent juveniles, guns, baggy clothes, ‘broken’ English, aggression... Who the hell planted that there? Why did I think that? Why is the media trying to push me to think negatively of black people? Why are they telling me to distrust and avoid my brothers? Why is it that I am encouraged to hate myself, to be ashamed of a colour that is as much a part of me as my beating heart? I didn’t choose this, rather, this is a part of who I am! But hold on...if you make me even a little angry, I’m just that angry black guy who’s capable of beating you senseless if you look at him the wrong way, right?

So here’s the deal: I instruct you to increase my worth. Don’t make me a side-character whose only purpose is to be a token character that is only there as a prop or for someone else’s story progression. Develop my character, make me interesting, make people see that there is more to me than what they would expect from me. 

It’s okay if you want to make me gay, it’s okay if you put me in suit, it’s okay if you make me speak formally, it’s okay if you make me shy, vegan, smart, inquisitive...because no matter what, I will still be that black male character that you want to write in, I just won’t be The Black Character.

And hey, I’m not saying that every TV show or movie or whatever writes us in bad, poorly developed roles, but more often than not, that is the case. So write me well, please.

...What do you mean you’ve done it already?