I am a woman of color (WOC) until I am black, really black. A little black girl does not often find herself with a voice, with the protection of everything and everyone. A little black girl is scared and only sometimes believes that anyone gives a damn. At least this little black girl. We know that very early on. Even when the people who love us tell us we are important and special and valuable (and that does not always happen), we can see. We can hear. We listen. We sense. We're low on the totem pole. A woman of color gets to talk about her perspective, share the stories of her time as a little black or brown or yellow girl, as she developed into a woman who took control of her destiny or found herself crushed by the weight of its reality. When I am a woman of color, people who want to, who dare to, listen to my perspective, want to know what I think or believe, hope they want to know my story, what I have lived, what I experience. As a woman of color I feel expert in my experience, strong, protective, prepared. But deep down, I am still a little black girl. Scared, tired, fragile, strong, endlessly hopeful, and both shamelessly fearful and fearless.
I have been unable to write or speak or even utter a gasp about the girls, kidnapped, stolen in Nigeria by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram. I knew, even as a young girl, that if I went missing, no one would come looking for me. And every time I tried to disappear, ran away, hid in the closet or the attic, even my parents did not stop what they were doing to find me. Everything I have ever known about my status did nothing to reinforce my sense of worth or value. Little black girls were not searched for, missed when they were gone. Yes, this was a child's perspective, and yes, they, we are valuable to many, but consider that the stories that really got the public moved to action were those of pretty little white girls stolen in the night. Rarely did I see a story about a small black child that raised everyone's consciousness, concern, pulled the community together to talk about the sanctity of childhood or innocence. I knew inside, just knew that the general population was not concerned for my virtue, my safety, or my innocence. No one who looked like me starred in the rescue story.
So when I learned they were gone, my heart sank. I felt as if I'd been kicked in the gut. And then my thoughts turned to them. Taken in the dark, scared to death, wondering what would become of them, how would the people who loved them find them, where were they going. I imagined them looking for clues on the path, a way to remember to find their way back, probably knowing they would not go back. At least not the way they came. I thought of the fucking cowardice it took to punish people, communities by raging assaults on young girls and women. I thought of the absolutely sickness of that kind of power play and how the eyes of those girls and their minds and their hearts and their bodies will be changed forever. And then I learned that I was late to the Intel. They'd been gone days when I first heard about the abduction. Many tuned in later to find that the girls had been missing for weeks.
I could not conjure up in the recesses of my mind, the most horrible fear, most alienating, soul crushing, dream stealing terror that is happening right now. They were gone for days before the world got enraged, got upset, was called to action. Taken in the night at their school by a group that rejects Westernization and education of girls and women. Their response to this affront was to kidnap the girls and, depending on who you are asking, sell them into marriage, lead them through the brutal terrain of the forest, or torment and repeatedly rape them, traumatizing and terrorizing them and leaving their families in complete anguish. Each possibility more horrifying than the next. That the possibilities are more than likely probabilities has left me supremely enraged.
Their mothers and families left to imagine the unimaginable, crying in the night, feeling the psychic pull of their children and having no idea how or where to find them. There is talk of international aid, perhaps a trade with Boko Haram for militants being held as prisoners. There are rallies and writing campaigns, and calls for action. I support those. But what I cannot get out of my mind, even when I close my eyes, are the faces I have conjured of those girls, their eyes staring at me, making our connection real. It is so easy, especially in the modern world, when the threats are not immediate or put one in imminent danger, to turn one's head. But I feel their presence and their fear and their life force.
There but by the grace of God go I. I see myself in their faces. Read my own name next to theirs. The horror lies in the absolute randomness of being unfortunate to be chosen for such violence and assault. A girl in the world learns these things. That upon her body and to her mind will be done great damage and violence in the name of anything and nothing. How I wish I could make them feel safe, secure, complete after this. Some have escaped and I have read that some may have died on the journey but many will have an "after this." What that is, where that is, how that is, we don't yet know. What serves as a metaphor for so many of us, girls in the world, lost in the dark, stolen innocence, is the reality for many more.
Hiding in the closet or in the attic, I remember my pounding heart. Its steady thunder keeping me tethered to the present, kept me from fleeing to my mind, my dreams, my outer space, disappearing place. I feel their hearts beat. All of ours. And I hope these girls are reunited with their families and brought home soon. Say their names out loud so you believe that they are as real as you are. Call out to them so they feel your hope and your rage and their strength and your love. The little black girl inside of me is screaming out, clawing at the walls, begging to be heard, to be rescued, to be healed. The WOC is prepared to be steely and strong enough to support others, to hold them up in body and spirit, to live in a place where being a girl in the world, a black girl in the world can again be wondrous and awesome, not dangerous and threatening.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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