The Minimization of Black Girlhood (Rough Draft)

It's always something when you are different. "She's special," my mama would say but in old southern folk talk, that just means I was weird. 

"She's too smart for her own good."  Another backwards compliment I would hear, comparing my book smarts to my well-being often meant that I was cruising for a bruising. The use of book smarts without common sense or compassion was practically useless. This obviously displeasing "otherness" was what mainly dictated my change. The type of differences that make ignorant folk say, "you talk white" or call you a nerd for listening to rock music. The kind of otherness that doesn't come with a just for me kiddie perm and your grandmother reminding you that "You're beautiful just the way you are" while she kisses your forehead and tear-filled face after being teased once your Shirley Temple curls turn into a fro.  

Childhood can be cruel to a girl. As cruel as self-mutilation in middle-school and suicide attempts in high-school, feeling like you need to escape life to feel better-- to feel free. So to escape being different you become less of what you were born to be and more like what people preferred to see. You retreat to the nearest wooded areas and cry for your true self among the humming of nature. At least you don't have to explain your tears to them. At home, I am reminded that there is something wrong with me. I would prefer to explain the soul death that I felt daily trying to be as "NORMAL" as everyone else while making the people around me comfortable by not being too much like myself. 

Minimizing yourself is like knowing how to talk but only being allowed to docilely nod and smile when people ask you questions. It's truly a double life. I learned to live mine early. People don't like for you to be smarter than them or as them, especially if you're a child. It think it especially bothers adults when a female child is intelligent and thoughtful. I had been groomed to be intelligent but reprimanded when that intelligence changed the adults around me. I would be told things like "you got a smart ass mouth...you think you so damn smart...you ain't that smart...it's not enough to be book smart... (or my personal favorite) you think you smarter than me."