Rearranging My List of Socially Acceptable Identities

SBG Classic - This piece was originally written on April 1, 2016

As a writer, I find myself constantly looking for new ideas, but also trying to delve deeper into the issues that matter the most to me. I never tire of swirling around the events of the day in my mind - trying to gain a deeper understanding of how I interact with the world. It takes a conscious effort to live with purpose - to be able to act on the ideals that you have formed about yourself and the world around you.

I'm still figuring it out.

My Twitter feed is chocked full of tweets about Black being beautiful, books to read and celebs I creep on, but also, the palpable tensions in this country over race, immigration, the ongoing threat of terrorism, and the oncoming presidential elections. All of these topics are real. They exist even apart from the chaos of the internet where a screen, a username, and an idealized profile can provide a safe distance. It's up to me to decide how I will handle these issues when they present themselves in my life. But most importantly, how will I feel about these interactions afterward? Will I bury away these experiences of when the real world and my identity collide? Will I talk about them freely? Most likely, I'll pick and choose. Most likely, it will depend on how much it will hurt to recount these experiences.

That being said, there are some parts of my experience that are deemed more "socially acceptable" than others. Less fear surrounds them because the mainstream has deemed these parts of me "safe" to talk about. I've realized that I have a list of identifiers that can be ranked in terms of social acceptability. Some of them have been normalized by the mainstream, others not so much. If I want to talk about my experiences being tall (5'11"), that's perfectly acceptable. All people are different heights - others complain about being short. It's normal. If I want to talk about being a woman, well, the waters get murky, but maybe that could be okay too if I join the ranks of upper-middle-class white feminists I went to a liberal arts school with.

If I dare go on, if I dare suggest any further the complexity to my identity - already perceived to be fractured and diminished under patriarchy - it might make people uncomfortable. Writing about life as a Black woman born to working-class immigrant parents and the countless other elements of my background that have shaped me into the woman I am today is risky. I've been taught for years to be what makes others comfortable, which meant the erasure of parts of my identity. One of the daily realities of being Black in America is that the comfort or discomfort of white people is a burden one must take on as a matter of survival. You can either be what you are expected to be or try to assimilate with white society and still bear the stereotype anyway. The only way to win against this system is to be your authentic self and tell your own story. Scream it because you're human! To be robbed of your complexities is to be dehumanized. Individuality poses a threat to the status quo. It's threatening to be fearlessly you. It's powerful, and it can change things.

I know this now, but acting on this knowledge can be difficult.

I once had a professor use me in class as an example of a person under layers of disadvantage. (How charming, I know!) He meant that I am a woman and that I'm also Black, but I have even more layers than he dared to say in class.  I grew up in one of those "troubled Black neighborhoods" where the white people you see are either cops, drug addicts or lost. Ha! He didn't even know that I had recently been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. He didn't know that I was a first-generation American and a first-generation college student - that my life now was nothing that my parents could have prepared me for. Imagine having so many layers, only for others to choose the ones that are most convenient for them. Never mind that he had just embarrassed the very reserved,  singular Black girl in his class. Vulnerability is not a layer - not one granted to me, anyway. But I have to live with all of my layers every day- no matter which ones others choose to acknowledge.

I know they are not burdensome layers of disadvantage, but different essences of who I am. Being a Black woman might seem like a problem or disadvantage to some. It's not for me. But that doesn't change the fact that my status as a Black woman has affected my perception of what I can or cannot say about myself and do with my life and the way that I move through the world. It changes the willingness of others to truly hear me and to believe.

So over time, some parts of my identity became more comfortable to access because the mainstream has accepted them. I don't want to call these acceptable issues "white people problems" because that phrase has taken on a playful meaning that I don't want to evoke. Let's call them problems that white Americans have embraced into their lives. Mental health is definitely one of these issues. The idea that is acceptable to go to a therapist, or to take anti-depressants is not at all prevalent in communities of color. My parents used to tell me that I was too sensitive, that my depression and anxiety could be stuffed down, and that I should toughen up.  When I left home to go to a predominately white college, I realized that mental illness was an okay thing to talk about. There was a Peer Counselor group and over 70% of the students visited counseling services at some point in their academic careers. My first experiences with therapy were in this kind of safe zone, squarely under the umbrella of mainstream white approval. Because of that, I can tell that writing about mental health feels safer to me than say, writing about how my racial and gender identities have developed or expanding on how intersectionality influences my everyday life.

I don't think  I'm afraid to let others know about my experience walking through this life as a Black woman. I think that I'm still so young, and it feels like I'll never be able to fully grasp what it means to be a Black woman today - but there is no one definition to grasp! I think that I just have to remind myself that there is no one set of knowledge that qualifies me to speak about my own experiences and understanding of the world up until this second! That being said I have all of the qualifications that I need. I invented all of the qualifications necessary to have a PhD. in ME and I earned that shit, wrote a thesis on it, and everything - Okay, I'm just playing but you get what I mean!

So dare I flaunt my layers? Decide that I'm not a creature built of expectations? Talk about the parts of myself that our society doesn't like to hear about? Black women are finally entering our golden age of self-love and self-discovery. The infinite stories of Black women that have always existed, but were muffled and silenced are being told again. It's a lot to process,  and it's exciting. We live in a time in which it's possible for me to believe that even my own stories are worth telling - what a bizarre thought!

So, I guess the ultimate solution to rearranging my list of socially acceptable issues is to just trash the entire list altogether. It's like baggage.  My many identities are so much lighter and unencumbered than socially taboo "problems". I'm determined not to let these perceptions distort my own worthiness.

*Visualizes Solange levels of #carefreeblackgirl liberation*