The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, стр. 43
Johnny Boy would say, “You’re black, but not in the same way.” As if it was both an indictment and a compliment, and it always made me look down, mostly in guilt, because he said it as more of a compliment than an indictment. A friend once told me that this was the same for the Blackgirls who were asked if they were mixed, or praised for their thin noses or their eye color—but what was so wrong with being black “in the same way”? “You’re African, not really like American black. So why do you take all of this race stuff so seriously?” he asked.
That man at the store that day, the one who said that thing, he did not see African girls or Creole girls or girls who could trace their lines to Carolina plantations. He saw us, all of us, as Blackgirls. As the same. “Most people process the world not as they are, but as they are treated,” I said to Johnny Boy. What I did not admit was even at that table and the years after, even after adopting the rage of my new sisters, I sometimes felt like an impostor. And similarly, my breathing would never temper at those family reunions and Monrovian elsewheres, hearing those stories of Liberia older than my years, than my memory.
So we—transplanted from Liberia and Nigeria and Ethiopia, from Ghana and Senegal and the DRC, from Kenya, from Zambia and elsewhere, pushed over the ocean by those scales and gnashing teeth, some before our parents and some after, some undocumented and some the first in their families born with blue passports—we practice what it is like to be black, to be white, to be American, to be anything other than who we are. Learn the words, the customs, the rage, the ways that our parents have not been here long enough to pass down. We took the teasing, the name-calling, the misunderstanding, the “Didn’t you ride giraffes in Africa?” the “Did y’all have houses there?” the “Africans are too aggressive” the “Y’all Africans think you’re better” the “Well, you don’t look African” the “When I said that thing, I was talking about other Africans” the “Does anyone in your family do 409 scams?” the “Are you even American?” the “blue black” the “You sold us” the “damned Africans” the “Did they have multiple wives there?” the “Do you know voodoo?” the “Why is Africa so poor?” the “Why do Africans smell?” the “Mutombo” the “Grace Jones” the “National Geographic” the “African Booty Scratcher” the “You don’t sound like a black person” the “My parents donate to Africa” the “black people are so sensitive” the overeager “YESS, girlfriend!” the “How did you know that?” the “Where did you go to school?” the “I’m not a racist, but” the “damned black people” the “But why do they have nice cars and live in the projects?” the “My mom didn’t really mean that thing she said. You know how the older generation is” the “Did you get any help on this paper?” the “If you talk about being black too much, you’re the racist” the “We won’t be able to give you that promotion this time” the “I don’t see color”—we took it all.
What I saw in the eyes of those first-generation Americans and young black immigrants like myself was the stress of never arriving, the impatience, the disconnect, the madness of identity. I admit I escaped, I whispered on a call to Johnny Boy, weeks after, when he was still calling to see if time had changed me. I did look for this home on the shoulders of love. I could not help it. That was my inheritance. But by spring, after fall, after Johnny Boy and those calls, when I made room for my thoughts, for myself, I knew I could no longer look for my reflection in the men I chose. And home, my first home, was the beating drum.
“Are you well?” Papa asked and his voice pulled me from the waves. I had called Mam’s phone but he picked up, and I was better for it.
“I am,” I answered softly.
“Mam says you got a dog,” he said and I imagined him smiling.
“I did. A black Lab,” I said.
“Hm. They are the best dogs,” he said, then seemed to loiter in the silence, like those who were far better at showing their love than at navigating its words.
“Mam says you started working on your book again. That’s good.”
“Yeah, I’m trying,” I said from my fire escape, the laptop and empty screen scrutinizing me from my desk. “Writing is hard. It can be hard, Daddy.”
“Sure, but who better to do those kinds of things?” he asked in that steadfast way.
And there it was. His colossal being. His words pulling thunder from the sky.
“Thank you, Daddy,” I said, my lips trembling in the silence. “For everything.”
“I don’t know what I did but I will take it,” he laughed. “Here’s your mom.”
Mam said hello almost immediately, taking the phone to commence small talk and news of her day.
“How is …” she started to ask, finally.
“We’re no longer seeing each other.” I rushed to tell Mam before she could finish.
“Oh. Since when? He seemed nice,” she blurted, but in stutters.
“He was. He was very nice. But …”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m well, I’m good,” I assured her. “This isn’t like the last one.”
“Okay,” Mam said.
“I think I want to go back to Liberia,” I blurted and waited to hear the slightest movement on the other end of the line.
“Well, are you sure? Dry season is almost over.”
“I think so. I started having that dream again. About Satta,” I said.
“Oh. Did you think about …”
“I did. And she was nice too. But I’m good. I want to do my own work,” I said, remembering the vanilla smell of the