#102–105. The Next Four On The Writing Schedule
Louisiana. Broken Background. Paper Bag Test. Low Self-Esteem. A mini-essay but a gulp of fresh air at the same time.
Phew.
Okay.
Deep breath.
Yesterday I got an email saying how I am starting to sound the same in my articles, and that I had a lot of one topic rewritten for the plastic surgery articles that I work on. And that is difficult. I already get paid $60 for 1500 words which works out to 4 cents per word. It takes me hours to finish one, like not three hours, maybe six hours. And then another few to edit. So really it is pennies I’m making to be corrected a lot.
So I do need this job though. I am working on other things that I don’t care to share publicly. So I hope that I can just take the corrections and that things can evolve where the job takes me to the next place and moves forward on its own like, you know, when one level is done, you move on. So I hope that day is on its way soon. That’s all I’ll say here. It’s tough because I want to save this money to go to a dance program this summer.
Next though this is the point, these four points. Let’s go ahead and work on this:
So basially I want to talk about these four points. I have a lot of things still to write, and I skipped so many on this Schedule because some thing are really heavy and deserve to be one topic for a post. 102 is actually that but because it is linked to my brother, I am not going to like elaborate publicly so muhc you know as I would on a topic re: myself.
Let’s begin.
102. Louisiana — C**** (Only an Intro Here)
So I don’t share these articles because you know, people don’t like to know that you write so much about your life which contains other people. So it’s best to work though things and then kind of keep it to yourself and others in a community you build. This is sad because my brother’s birthday is in February and just passed.
It is sad because I only texted on Facebook Messenger and he has kind of cut everyone off for reasons that cannot be discussed here. Rather than try to work through things, he cut people off. And so what do you do when, sure, I’ve made mistakes with him and have been ready to apologize for a long time. But it’s only one-sided.
He went to college in Louisiana at Tulane University and I have been so proud of him for that, but the trauma we’ve experienced particularly I believe with a lot, you know, single parent home, and then he dealt with my mom divorcing his dad, and then a step parent who did not treat him like his child and only recognized us, his four biological children. We’ll get there soon. I have to wear my whole story at my dance studio which it’s so so so tragic compared to everyone there.
Anyway, when you meld accomplishment with trauma it breaks you still. So I’ll say that I’m sad because we were basically ironically living kind of like the idea of “African American” that is projected and meanwhile living around African Americans who had shit, you know. That is the irony. No lol.
So that is how you know that it is a catch all term to make a Black immigrant into a “Black person”, take away identity and create one when it isn’t just America that has made me. It is marketing. Another story another day.
So again, I love my brother. I hope and send messages on holidays. I hope it can work out eventually. I really do. And healing can really take place.
And really, no I cannot deal with random children that I am technically “related” to but in the way it shows the access that so many people have tried to have with me/us that I don’t recognize them or it. It feels wrong and more like spirit people in the line of spiritual dysfunction that we are products of but at least begin to have awareness, rather than a repeating thing unaware. So judge me. That’s fine. Survival though is where I am these days.
103. Broken Background — What Do You Do?
Okay, there is no answer for this. I think that what I have to do today in rehearsal for a thing called Paquita — I am an understudy and worry I won’t advance at this company because I’m not as high level. But for now I’ll keep working. I got corrections to point my feet more, place my leg behind me in an attitude turn en dehors, and use my head not just my eyes when looking, so turn the full head to the right when the position calls for it, not just eyes cutting at 45 degrees.
Anyway, the best I can do is to recognize all of the brokeness and bring it with me in rehearsal. Bring it with me as I write. Bring it with me as I write to move forward from writing. Low key the vibration of the world is at wanting me to fail as a Black woman, this is what it truly is until dimensionally the right things arrive I sense. So it is time to recognize this and how it impacts me and Godwilling be protected to move forward.
104. The Paper Bag Test
Yes, this sucks right because I think this is an example of African American arrogance, in the way that African Americans say Africans are arrogant, which is true. I went through a good phase of that until I think as I got older the dust began to settle. But I think that the colorism that existed with African Americans and today as far as achievement, I imagine it still does, like the look of the people in high prominent positions, entertainment absolutely for women only, but I mean in general. I get the evolution and one drop rule, seeing the barbarity of rape and the irony of social class within this, sick clearly, and everything. I also think I’m right, here.
I always thought W.E.B. DuBois slighted Marcus Garvey because he was darker skinned, so I’m not sure for sure (but I speculate probably), but I do know that he thought that colorism discussions were something that Black people in the United States didn’t have an issue with and chided him on that. So I do notice though that he is part of the light-skinned educated African American class of this era, when my African American relatives are darker skinned and uneducated, a number I mean. It is not always the case, today thank goodness I’m glad it’s changed a lot, but I’m not lost on these things.
So I think that the assumption that I am not supposed to notice that things don’t quite apply to me always in how African Americans have helped me as an immigrant because of where I’d fall sometimes within the group because of how I look or am coming from, this is I think a sort of arrogance. That these things that exist are not still obstacles for me, and that all I should have is gratitude. I am lucky I feel. Also I have a story.
I don’t know the word for it but a speck in the eye the same way a Nigerian, the same way that Africans took part in selling others from their groups, but also how Black Americans, a small minority, enslaved other Black people in the United States, too. One as far as historical impact and complete annhialiation of original identity, is worse but also both are obviously bad.
Howard University used this test, the Paper Bag Test, for sororities and fraternities. You know. Anyway, continental and diasporic Africans at this point have adopted the concept of color hierarchy too, as this is a global phenomenon at this point. So anyway.
105. Legacy of Low Self-Esteem
It is something that has been bequeathed. I accept these days that I am “just a Black girl”. I’m not yet I am. It is in the ether. And I hope that to rise beyond, it is something I just say to let hit the air to transform into something more kinetic.
Let me go now. I got this done quickly this morning.
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