This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America(7)

If she’s ugly, hide her face with a lace-trimmed handkerchief and tell passersby that she’s sleeping. If she’s beautiful, hand her off to strangers so that they can talk about how pretty her skin is or how many curls they can count on top of her small head.





When she’s approaching six or seven months, where it’s time for her to start speaking, teach her “Dada” first so that she knows that whatever comes out of her mouth is a symbol with a point of reference and that reference always returns to man.

Man is the establishment and system, and don’t ever let her forget it.





When that black girl child can learn to form full sentences, teach her early on never to ask questions, especially if the interlocutor is a man. She must learn submission early if she is to succeed in life. Don’t allow her eyebrows to raise when she sees the women in her community laugh and call the boys “fresh” when they question things. Smack her face if you must.

An emotionally inexpressive black girl child is one who keeps herself alive.





If she relaxes her posture and her legs begin to spread, hit both kneecaps with an open palm or the back of a pan so that she associates opening herself up with pain.





If she spends too much time running after the boys or allowing them to chase after her, call her a fast-tailed girl even if she won’t know what that means. Remember: she’s not allowed to ask questions. And frankly, she’s better off that way. Ambiguity will undo her sooner rather than later.





When she bleeds for the first time, tell her how inherently dirty she is and that what she is down there is nothing but a cesspool of stench and waste rather than a channel that brings forth life and takes in pleasure. Tell her that she’s a woman even if she has no hair besides that on her scalp and arms or no sprouting breasts because the weight of that word “woman”

makes her feel as if she can tip the scales. It’s not about what she feels but what she is made to think that will do her in.





You can pinpoint the exact moment when she begins harboring sexual feelings for the opposite sex: her stare lingers a little longer than normal; her voice tapers off while she shakes her head and tucks her bottom lip into her mouth; her blushing, her lack of eye contact. Tell her what happens to black girls who want to be “fast.” Tell her that they will get pregnant and never achieve anything. Tell her that the boy will leave her and that he won’t give her the respect of his pants hitting the floor when it’s time to do what grown folks do. Tell her, tell her, tell her. And before you know it, the next time she so much as lays eyes on another man, her vaginal muscles will tighten. Her opening will produce an extra layer of skin as a fortress so that no man can get in, and if he does, that in and of itself is her punishment for not keeping it tight.





Instruct her that being complimented on her looks is much better than being complimented on her brains. Everyone wants a black woman who makes him or her feel at ease. Her face is the easiest way to comfort people, and if she isn’t pretty, then her silence is even more necessary, for it is better to be present in the room than never in it to begin with, and she must get in, even if she cannot participate. She must access whatever it is that they have by any means necessary.





If she tells you that a man calls her pretty, pour yourself a glass of Merlot because men don’t give compliments easily, and then figure out a way to get her vaginal muscles to unwind themselves. The only thing worse than being a black woman is being a single black woman, and it’s time to reel a man in. Black is ideal, but whoever will have her works, especially if she’s doing well professionally. Ain’t too much of her kind up at the top, and love is love anyway. The only thing worse than a successful black woman is a single and successful black woman.





Tell her to let the man be the man. Don’t argue with him. Don’t share an opinion unless he asks her to. Let him be right even when he’s wrong. If she takes care of him in this way, he will take care of her.





Tell her that when he’s ready to make love, she should lie on her back and spread her legs as far as they can go. She’ll remember you beating her kneecaps with open palms and backs of pans, but at least this will distract him, breaking through her skin to find a home inside of her. If she screams out in pain or cries, he’ll probably ask her if she wants him to stop, although this is not what he actually wants. Urge her to not make him stop or slow down. Instead, tell her to focus her attention someplace else, even if that place is unreal. Let her think of Elysian fields where black girls receive more mercy. She can stay there until he comes. Then after that, she should either rub his chest, watch him as he rests, or bring him some food from the kitchen, before he wants to do it all over again.





Once he decides that she doesn’t excite him anymore but is too comfortable to officially break up with her, he’ll cheat on her and you must blame it all on her. There must’ve been something that she was doing wrong to not keep him around, and she better make things right so that she won’t embarrass you.





If they do decide to get back together, she’ll shrink even further. The next time you see her, you’ll mistake her for your own shadow for her light will be gone.