dear diary: sensible black girls

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with the post, but it was a pretty sunset that day. And even with the large, obnoxious crane in the foreground, I still enjoy it, so...

Anyway, school's out now (queue excited hand-clapping and body flailing), but before it was out I had to do this thing for one of my literature classes called a Capstone presentation. Basically, during Capstones, seniors (of which I am one) present to the class their aspirations, hopes, dreams, and (if you're one of the lucky ones) plans that are no longer mere objectives but concrete things happening for you presently. You also place those hopes etc. in concert with your idea of what you perceive literature to be and specifically how that particular class has guided or not guided those perceptions.

For my Capstone, I read an entry from my journal that I felt was representative of some of my feelings about myself, about my major, but ultimately about my race. I'm gonna share an excerpt here:

Up until I was about three my name was Catherine after my dad’s elder sister. But then my dad got into an argument with her, and whatever it was they disagreed on must have been very important and/or very intense, because my dad had my name legally changed to Karen. It wasn’t that much of a leap, since firstly I wasn’t too attached to the name Catherine considering my very young age, and secondly and more technically Karen and Catherine mean essentially the same thing – Pure.  

Except I don’t and have never considered myself pure. And I don’t mean pure in the sense of faultlessness or sinlessness; I mean the kind of pure that connotes a freedom from discordant qualities, but isn't necessarily metaphysical. Like when people talk about pure gold or a pure tone in music without any kind of extraneous or inappropriate elements taking away from the experience of that tone. So then, a musical kind of pure, if you will.

I am not a musical kind of pure. I am electronic and unplugged all at once. I am amplified. I am muted. I harbor too many contradictions to really and truly qualify the meaning of my name. And I think that’s why I have such an affinity for literature – or at the very least literature, as I understand it: Literature as all encompassing and inclusive; Literature as rigid and specialized; Literature as open and transcendent; Literature as elusive and insular. 

I have often considered what my future will look like; lately those considerations have tripled in occurrence, and are markedly more frantic now that graduation is nearly upon me and the prospect of the “real” world is made more tangible daily. These considerations consistently leave me feeling claustrophobic. I mean that they elicit a sort of strange, frenzied, oftentimes hysterical feeling that I am unable to articulate as yet. I wouldn’t call it terror although it does have the makings for that particular emotion. But more and more, I have come to think of it as the ultimate side effect of my gross indecision complex. Because I am grossly indecisive. 

I want to live on an isolated sheep farm in the French Alps with a whole slew of my own barefoot, underfoot children; I want to be a very capable food critic living in a charming, little, Seattle apartment with a cherry red front door; I want to be the flamboyant, artistic wife of an impressively bearded fisherman and live on an island off of the coast of Maine; I want to be a much beloved primary schoolteacher in a quaint European village; I want to tour the world over as an accordion player in a band that I shall call The Beard and the Trapezoid; but mostly I just want to be an eccentric and brilliant professor of Literature at a university – and I won’t even mind on which continent it is. 

I can’t imagine what some of these dreams seem like to people who aren’t me, because to me they make perfect sense. But I find that I have to defend my aspirations constantly to people who, during my entire explanation, maintain the same incredulous, almost pitying expression. Because sensible black girls aspire to sensible careers. Sensible black girls grow up to be doctors and lawyers and engineers and chief editors and computer programmers, and (if you absolutely must push the envelope) fashion designers. 

They know better than to gamble their futures on the success of bands that play obscure instruments like the accordion. They certainly know to stay away from places where the chances of them being the only one of their kind are invariably guaranteed. And every sensible black girl is well aware that fishing is no kind of life to live regardless of how impressive your potential lobsterman’s beard is. So, what to do when you’re a sensible black girl who practically avoids all the sensible things you ought to be chasing…?

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