Letter to an Angry Black Girl
It might seem incredibly provocative to use this title in any piece, especially one written by a white woman. But that is literally what this is. And that’s literally who she was, at a particular moment in time when our paths crossed.
I was walking home from the subway with my son. He’d been at his weekly program in another borough, and we were slogging our way up hill at the end of a long day. We came up to a group of black teens and I told my son to pass them on the left, and to remember to say “excuse me.” I was walking behind him. As he passed the teens, I heard him say, “Why can’t I say ‘watch out’?” to which I immediately — as I always do when this comes up — said, “we say excuse me.” And we continued on our way.
As we neared the corner, I heard one girl loudly declare, “White people are so fucking entitled they can’t even say excuse me.” Loudly enough for me to hear it from half a block away. Which was clearly her intention.
Lots of thoughts went through my mind. They included, “fuck you back, sweetie” and “dear lord, can’t people just holster their rage?” and “do I bother trying to explain to her?” and finally, “I’m just too tired to care.” I turned my head momentarily in the group’s direction, not sure exactly why, thinking that maybe I’d wait for them to catch up. Then I just crossed the avenue with my son and continued home.
What I might have said, had she been able to hear me over the sound of her own anger is that I know it’s incredibly easy to draw conclusions about people in an instant. And that I’m quite sure that’s happened to her countless times. And I know that can be downright infuriating. I get it. Not because I’m a black girl in New York City, but because I’ve spent nearly thirty years running interference for a disabled son who’s been on the receiving end of unkind looks, of parents pulling their kids away as they walk by (in case they might catch what he has, I guess), of stares, glares, and obvious expectations that my son can’t/won’t/shouldn’t, and other versions of opting him out of situations before he even has a chance to opt in. So I get it. I get what feeling dissed feels like.
Maybe you didn’t hear me remind my son to say “excuse me” instead of “watch out.” I can certainly believe that. But you jumped straight to “he must be an entitled racist jackhole” and that made me both sad and mad. Sad because it means you carry around a sack full of anger at the ready, to be lobbed at anyone who you think is disrespecting you. That’s a pretty terrible way to walk through the world. It means you’re always on your guard. And that you assume the worst about people. Especially about the ones who don’t look like you. I even get that, to a degree. Because I’m always running interference for my son. I’m the one who told a woman on a bus several years ago, who gave him some pretty ugly looks because she didn’t seem to appreciate his Sesame Street talk, that I thought her way of looking at my son was unkind, and that it made me think she might be unkind too. I held that thought for the 45 minutes it took us to reach out destination, going over and over in my mind whether I should say anything. I finally decided I should, because my son can’t defend himself. And also because I thought that maybe she’d behave differently and better if ever she found herself around someone like my son again. When I told my husband, he said I shouldn’t have said anything. I was pretty pissed. “So people should just be able to be rude to our son, and I should just take it on his behalf? How’s that ok?” Recently, I tried a more educational approach with a girl of about seven who gave him that “what a freak” look as we passed her. I let my son keep walking and stopped to tell her that sometimes, he just likes to talk out loud; it helps him somehow. But it doesn’t mean he’s dangerous. Kind of like how you probably rehearse dances in your head (she had one of those ballerina buns). It gave her pause, but even more so, sent a message (I hoped) to the woman with her.
So I get the anger, the defensiveness, and frankly the resentment of having to explain to those judging you that they’re wrong. But I’m honestly just too tired to care about correcting you. Or anyone else at this point. I’m just bone-deep tired of having to be vigilant on my son’s behalf, and of knowing how hard I’ve worked with him and his siblings to make sure they are polite, respectful, upstanding, damn good human beings. I’m done explaining and apologizing. I just can’t do it any more. Even when my son says “watch out” he means to be saying “excuse me” and I tell him that I know that, but that it doesn’t sound as nice. Which is why I correct him. He’s my life’s work, so I’ll continue to do that. Because it matters to me how he carries himself in this world, and that he be the best version of himself. I hope someday, you’ll find your own path to letting go of snap judgments, and of thinking the worst of some folks. Maybe righteous rage serves some purpose for you, and maybe you thought you made me feel bad. You didn’t. You just made me feel sad about how easy anger can be someone’s go to, and not just anger, but anger laced with ugly judgment.
Life is full of bumps and disses and hurts. It’s also full of some wonderful human encounters. There’s no predicting on any given day which you’ll experience. Maybe it’ll be some crazy mix. But it’s always gonna be a cold, ugly world if you think someone you don’t know, who passes you by carrying his own heavy load, is out to hurt you. Maybe he’s just a disabled young man with his mom, trying to get home.
