The immigrant

I am the one who is not from here it goes without saying, I am an immigrant Not a traveler, an immigrant. That person who is snatching away from his land Who on leaving has lost a part of himself Who…

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the other talk

I relish in the raising up of my pre-teen Black girl

Watching her body change, I make sure to celebrate her

To cultivate in her the expansiveness of her being — of what is possible,

A connection to her power and majesty

An insatiable curiosity about the changes she’s experiencing

I am most careful to stomp out the flames of fear in her about the way she is received

Still, the other day she ran home crying with her bestie, shaking with fear

That Saturday afternoon I had done what mamas do when restless children decide to play kickball in her living room

I sent them outside with sidewalk chalk on a barely spring day in Brooklyn

Two beautiful Black girls with bodies burgeoning at break-neck speed

Here is where I feel the need to defend myself even as my politics teach me better

Preemptively answering the accusatory questions rooted in the fear of a chaotic world where little Black girls armed with sidewalk chalk are unsafe

“Where was her mama?”

But I did my best to arm her. I really did.

We agreed on how far and where she could go

I gave her a phone

I kissed her forehead

I prayed.

The non-Black world has found empathy that is typically elusive to Black folks in the painful reality of the “talk” that Black parents give their boys

it captures the parental helplessness in the face of state power

it captures the flimsiness of the armor we send our children into the world with

it captures the consistent flow of adrenaline in our bodies that is actively poisoning us

it captures the generational harm and the psychological toll of living in racism

it’s what Black parents have always done: relieving their children of their innocence at home before the world can take it from them violently

Still, the inevitable happened.

They were sexually harassed for the first, and likely not the last time

I have no uniform to tell my child to watch for

no sirens to tell her trouble is coming

those that would harm her wear the same uniform of those who love her deeply and actively

she will only know the danger when it’s so close she may not escape it

As a Black mama of a Black girl, I don’t get the luxury of feigning surprise

I am not caught off guard

Rather I am trained for this moment

I’ve already begun asking her to change out of her favorite shorts before they hug her body too tightly,

Sneaking them out of her dresser drawer while she’s at school

I’ve started buying her t-shirts a size too big around the same time I started buying bralettes

I do this even as i know better

Some days these subtle shifts feel more like alibis than protection

As she escaped her harasser

My baby threw that middle finger up as she ran

And saved her tears for when she walked in the door

I began this piece naming the seeds I cultivate in her

I told her I was proud.

The immigrant

the other talk

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