Cotillions are for White Girls

I was the only black child in my Pacific Palisades private school. The other white students were children of doctors, lawyers, and Hollywood producers. They all lived in the surrounding Palisades and Santa Monica area in palatial mansions; I lived across town with my family in a Culver City apartment, right on the edge of South Central LA, just off La Cienega Boulevard. This was before there were many white people living in that neighborhood — it was still mostly middle class Black folks.

As you could imagine, I had trouble fitting in with my white classmates. I had learned how to code switch instantly — only speaking African American Vernacular English (AAVE) with the kids at my all black church on Crenshaw. Still, with my dark brown skin and long braids my mother had done for me, I stood out like a sore thumb.

At the end of 4th grade, one of my microbraids slipped out of my head. This wasn’t the first time it had happened — I had become a pro at discreetly putting the wayward braids in the pencil box on top of my desk, fearing that the other children would see them in my hand as I went to throw it away.

But one morning, I did the unthinkable: I had forgotten about the braids in my pencil box.

The boy sitting next to me spotted the loose braids as I opened my pencil box wide. Horrified, he shouted, “Look! Loryn’s hair is falling out!”

Everyone started to laugh. “They’re braids! THEY’RE BRAIDS,” I kept repeating, being drowned out by the laughter.

After that, I thought maybe I would never fit in. These kids didn’t even understand how braids worked. They didn’t know not to remark that they were “almost as dark as me” when they got a tan.

And their parents never let them come to our home. I had to meet them on their turf, in their mansions that looked like museums.

By 5th grade, my parents were doing the best they could to help me better fit in with the white students. My mother and I had countless conversations about how I was still pretty if I didn’t have silky hair, a slender body, and light eyes. I was able to find a safe haven with my black girlfriends from church. Still, something was missing.

I kept hearing my class mates talking about stuff that went down at “cotillion classes.” I asked around because I had never heard of it. Basically, it was a class at a country club where kids learn basic ballroom dancing and etiquette. Then, it culminated in a grand finale dinner dance at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills.

I was hooked. I wanted in badly. I was tired of being left out — why should the white kids have all the fun?

I went home and told my mom — she agreed immediately. You see, my mom’s generation saw social graces as a way to gain respectability. Little did I know at the time, I felt the same way too on some level.

Before my first day of cotillion lessons I didn’t know any dances other than the fun ones I did with my friends at church — the Butterfly, the Tootsie Roll, The Bankhead Bounce, and the occasional Kid n Play. Needless to say, this was not that. We learned the fox trot, waltz, tango, some of which I can still do today. Foolishly, I hoped there would be another Black girl, or, even better, another Black boy to dance with.

Alas, I was alone again.

The other girls from school were excited to be paired up with boys. There was one boy in particular I found cute who I would be interested in dancing with — and that was Alex*. Alex was kind and playful with every other girl in class — but he was rude and mean to me almost every day. I had to let go of any excitement about ever being paired with him. Many of the boys didn’t seem thrilled to be paired with me either — they often frowned or didn’t bother looking me in the eye, or would fuss when I took a wrong backwards step when they led in a dance. The dream of finally fitting in didn’t seem like it was going to happen. But I plugged away, one fox trot at a time.

*****

My academics were a different issue completely. Overall, I was pretty damn good student. My teachers loved me and for the most part, they treated me fairly with the exception of a few. My biggest challenge was math. I used to think it was because I just wasn’t good at it, but now I believe it’s that my teachers simply didn’t know how I could best learn and master it. I was lucky if I could get a C in Math each year, and I would often give the wrong answer when called on in class, which led to being teased by asshole 5th grade boys. Sixth grade was the time where students applied to secondary and junior high schools and my parents had their hearts set on sending me to Marlborough school, the top all-girls school in Los Angeles. It was closer to our home in South LA, I’d get the best education I could receive, and most importantly, there were other Black girls there. I would no longer be the only black person in my class.

But when my parents met with my 6th grade teacher, she delivered some bad news. “Loryn is remedial in math,” she told them. “She will never get into a school like Marlborough at her math level.”

My parents didn’t back down. They knew how the game was played. They knew that she wasn’t telling the white parents that Becky wouldn’t be able to get into Crossroads or wherever. They knew they had a smart kid. So, they asked the teacher’s aide, Ms. Sawin, to tutor me in math after school.

Ms. Sawin was patient, kind, funny, and really wanted me to learn the concepts. In a word, Ms. Sawin was a badass. We met every day after school for an hour. We would go over math concepts, talk about how the last lesson during the day went, check in about how my secondary school applications were going. She never doubted I could get into Marlborough for a second.

She was right. That April, I received my acceptance letter to the best school in Los Angeles. My days of being literally the only black student on an entire campus was over. It wouldn’t be without its challenges and I would still be at a majority white school, but I didn’t have to pretend so much anymore.

Cotillion lessons and code switching were exercises in double consciousness for me. I learned at a very young age, that being a black girl meant towing the line between being too black and not being black enough. It is a gymnastics routine, a hurdle competition. Having a family that supported me through it and gave me space to learn how to be unapologetically black was key.

I haven’t done a fox trot in years though.

*Names have been changed.