This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America(37)

As a child, I never saw black female television characters experimenting with drugs or alcohol—only their brothers. Sure, they might have had fake IDs, multiple boyfriends, and an occasional disregard for their parents’ rules, but that was it. Yvette Henderson of Smart Guy is a straitlaced teenager who has a passion for women’s rights and eventually attends Georgetown. In one episode, her younger brother, T. J., gets drunk one night. Moesha is a witty—and often boy-crazy—teenager from Los Angeles. When her brother stores a marijuana cigarette in his room, their parents initially accuse Moesha, which catalyzes a discussion about drugs. The creators of both shows, Danny Kallis for Smart Guy and Ralph Farquhar, Sara V. Finney, and Vida Spears for Moesha, chose to keep both black female teenage characters spot-clean. The same goes for Tia Landry and Tamera Campbell of Sister, Sister, and Reagan Gomez’s character, Zaria, on The Parent ’Hood.

On the contrary, drug and alcohol use and abuse seems to have been a rite of passage of white female characters of the 1990s and 2000s. Rayanne Graff, of My So-Called Life, gets addicted to both alcohol and drugs and suffers an accidental overdose that leads to her having her stomach pumped—yet she is also a fashion icon because of her layered outfits and accessorized hair. In Degrassi: The Next Generation, Ashley Kerwin takes Ecstasy, Anya MacPherson develops a cocaine addiction (but quits on her own to join the Canadian Forces), Katie Matlin abuses OxyContin and goes to rehab, and Victoria Coyne takes crystal meth. On the other hand, Hazel Aden, one of the most prominent black female characters, never so much as lifts a bottle of vodka for the five seasons where she appears. Kelly Taylor, of Beverly Hills 90210, gets addicted to cocaine thanks to her boyfriend Colin. Andie McPhee, of Dawson’s Creek, gets accepted to Harvard and experiments with Ecstasy pills. The list goes on and on.

What all this taught me as a child was that drug and alcohol use was an “oopsy” mistake for the vast majority of middle-and upper-class white girls, who might indulge if they got bored on a Saturday night. Even if they did experiment with drugs for a little while, white girls would still go on to great colleges; they would marry well and have children, regaling their teenagers with stories of their past. Wash, rinse, and repeat. That’s not to say that white girls and women do not succumb to drug addiction. They do many times over. But as a black girl, if I so much as touched a pill there was no coming back. There is no space for “experimentation” in the world of young black women, for there are already too many obstacles to overcome. Unlike with white girls, our inherent innocence is not assumed. We don’t have the space to be reckless and carefree and then “healed,” regenerating and then returning to regular life. Blame is already draped upon us like a cloak, but not one that can be shed at will.

When I see my white female contemporaries post pictures of their asses, or facetiously call each other sluts, or share their exploits on weed, LSD, or Klonopin on social media, I know that if I did the same I would embody a historically entrenched belief that I, as a black woman, am nothing but an immoral and filthy animal at my core. I knew this quite well at that Silver Lake party. As a black woman, I knew I could not afford to make a mistake. Fulfilling the expectations of society’s white imagination would be to self-inflict an injury from which I could not recover.



Once my mother and I had returned to our family home after my surgery—she was not comfortable bringing me back to Harlem, where no one would be looking out for me—I felt that I was dirty and that I needed to take a shower. The anesthesia was wearing off, and so she gave me another Vicodin and another Percocet. Almost as soon as I’d swallowed both pills and stepped into the shower, the soapsuds barely beginning to form on my body, I told her that I needed to get out because I was going to slip and fall. I crash-landed into her king-size bed. Bleeding and blabbering characterized the next forty-eight hours, which passed in an opiate haze. I felt as if someone had unplugged me. Fuses were blown out throughout my entire body. I was never vertical for longer than a few minutes, and I barely spoke because I did not have the ability to do so. As soon as the pills traveled down my throat, I began to slip away. I couldn’t feel a thing, and I hated it. I wanted to feel the pain because it was mine, mine to bear. I was afraid that I might get hooked on the pain meds. I was terrified of the desire to disconnect from reality, the root of much drug abuse—and that was really the last thing I wanted. I had fought so hard to both survive and thrive, and I didn’t want anything to soften or eradicate the intensity of life altogether. After two days, I swore off the Vicodin and Percocet. I wanted to feel the stitches in my body. I wanted to have some kind of sensation to remind myself that I did go through with a labiaplasty procedure, and that I was alive. So I opted for Advil, which was enough.

After the extended weekend was over, my mother begged me to take the rest of the week off work to recuperate, but I adamantly refused. I was still working at my hard-won entry-level job in publishing, and although I’d informed my (male) boss that I was having a procedure, I didn’t go into details; I wasn’t about to stay home for a week and refuse to provide a full explanation. I had to prove myself not only because I was new, but also because I was a black woman in an industry where minorities make up less than 5 percent of the workforce. I dreamed of success, and that started with me being strong and pushing through whatever pain I had. I’d chosen to get this procedure and I had chosen to deal with the consequences. I’d be damned if I presented as weak in front of my coworkers. As a black woman, I knew I had to be twice as good, stitched vulva and all.