Read Online Something Like Beautiful by asha bandele - Free Book Online
Authors: asha bandele
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good enough to be around you.
Truly, I wanted to scream at that mother. I wanted to demand: What kind of child are you raising where she could hit another little girl and you do not scold her? How dare she? I wanted to say. But to argue when you are the lone Black woman or man in an unfamiliar place and you are surrounded by apparently wealthy white people, an argument is a risk because it can always spiral into something beyond your control.
In 1987, Yvonne Smallwood, a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman, was arguing about a traffic ticket when she was stomped to death by white police. We want to believe it is far outside the norm, a blip in reality, a rogue moment in the history of race and sex relations in America. But the truth is weâve seen this happen again and againâwhether women were arguing a traffic ticket or protesting the treatment of their children or just trying to get home. The truth is African Americans come from a long line of women whoâve been beaten down for speaking up.
And we, you, me come from along line of women who were forced to live their lives with the fear that if we speak, we will lose, we will be separated from our children. From slavery to the sisters right now today, who get picked up, often on charges that are minor or else false, but because the court systems move so dreadfully slowly and because if bail is set, it is often set too high for our mothers to make, and so by the time we are released from jail, our babies have been placed in foster care. And getting our children back is much harder to accomplish than having them taken. There are records to prove this, Nisa. And there are, of course, the childless mothers. Some of them are our neighbors today, right here in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where we make our home. I wish I didnât know these things. I wish there was no reason for me to think of them. And most of the times, I donât.
Most of the time when we are exploring the neighborhoods of New York City, or the woods of Northern California, the mountain son the Pacific Coast of Mexico, or the waters at the tip of the Long Island Sound, most of the time and in most of those places I donât see past the wonder and excitement in your face.
But there are these other times we have shared, times when Ihave said nothing because to speak might have consequences greater than we can manage, that I can manage. At the prison, in the playground. Wherever. And I know this must somehow all be confusing for you: me, a mommy who sometimes speaks, who is sometimes silent. Me, a mommy who has standards but then seems to abdicate them and call it strategic. And I know I cannot clear it all up for you right now. I cannot even clear it all up for myself.
Because when I became a mother, all the love I thought I always had for children, for all children, but especially a child of mine, expanded exponentially and I thought I knew what all babies deserved. I thought I knew what all babies needed. I thought I knew what you deserved and what you needed. I thought I at least would know how to protect you at every turn.
But some of what exists out there that you have not seen and some of what exists out there that you have already seen that is all tied up with you being a girl, or you being Black, or you being a Black girl in this place at this time, is not what you deserved and not what you needed and if I cannot protect you, if I cannot shield you, then do I deserve you?
Chapter 5
deportation
W hen Nisa was a toddler, my girlfriend Raquel and I had a conversation about money and being a writer and not getting paid on time and what it means to be a good mother if you live in a world where it seems as though someone or something is destined to destabilize you. Some editor at a magazine was ducking her calls again for a story sheâd turned in five months earlier and now the loss of that checkâit was quite a substantial amountâleft her spiraling into a debt she didnât
Truly, I wanted to scream at that mother. I wanted to demand: What kind of child are you raising where she could hit another little girl and you do not scold her? How dare she? I wanted to say. But to argue when you are the lone Black woman or man in an unfamiliar place and you are surrounded by apparently wealthy white people, an argument is a risk because it can always spiral into something beyond your control.
In 1987, Yvonne Smallwood, a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman, was arguing about a traffic ticket when she was stomped to death by white police. We want to believe it is far outside the norm, a blip in reality, a rogue moment in the history of race and sex relations in America. But the truth is weâve seen this happen again and againâwhether women were arguing a traffic ticket or protesting the treatment of their children or just trying to get home. The truth is African Americans come from a long line of women whoâve been beaten down for speaking up.
And we, you, me come from along line of women who were forced to live their lives with the fear that if we speak, we will lose, we will be separated from our children. From slavery to the sisters right now today, who get picked up, often on charges that are minor or else false, but because the court systems move so dreadfully slowly and because if bail is set, it is often set too high for our mothers to make, and so by the time we are released from jail, our babies have been placed in foster care. And getting our children back is much harder to accomplish than having them taken. There are records to prove this, Nisa. And there are, of course, the childless mothers. Some of them are our neighbors today, right here in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where we make our home. I wish I didnât know these things. I wish there was no reason for me to think of them. And most of the times, I donât.
Most of the time when we are exploring the neighborhoods of New York City, or the woods of Northern California, the mountain son the Pacific Coast of Mexico, or the waters at the tip of the Long Island Sound, most of the time and in most of those places I donât see past the wonder and excitement in your face.
But there are these other times we have shared, times when Ihave said nothing because to speak might have consequences greater than we can manage, that I can manage. At the prison, in the playground. Wherever. And I know this must somehow all be confusing for you: me, a mommy who sometimes speaks, who is sometimes silent. Me, a mommy who has standards but then seems to abdicate them and call it strategic. And I know I cannot clear it all up for you right now. I cannot even clear it all up for myself.
Because when I became a mother, all the love I thought I always had for children, for all children, but especially a child of mine, expanded exponentially and I thought I knew what all babies deserved. I thought I knew what all babies needed. I thought I knew what you deserved and what you needed. I thought I at least would know how to protect you at every turn.
But some of what exists out there that you have not seen and some of what exists out there that you have already seen that is all tied up with you being a girl, or you being Black, or you being a Black girl in this place at this time, is not what you deserved and not what you needed and if I cannot protect you, if I cannot shield you, then do I deserve you?
Chapter 5
deportation
W hen Nisa was a toddler, my girlfriend Raquel and I had a conversation about money and being a writer and not getting paid on time and what it means to be a good mother if you live in a world where it seems as though someone or something is destined to destabilize you. Some editor at a magazine was ducking her calls again for a story sheâd turned in five months earlier and now the loss of that checkâit was quite a substantial amountâleft her spiraling into a debt she didnât
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