Critical mentoring: For those of us who mentor in troubled spaces

Source: http://fundingattractions.blogs.thompson.com/2011/03/21/grants-management-certification-program-deadline-extended/classroom-of-empty-chairs-4/

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women, those of us who are poor, who are lesbian, who are Black, who are older--know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.

(Lorde, 1984, p.112)

Lorde captures my, and so many others’, experiences with academe. Black women in academe, from the undergraduate student to the full professor, operate in trouble spaces. The nature and extent of the trouble varies in terms of stage of career, lifespan, geographical location and type of institutions, among other factors. Academia has its own established set of hegemonic practices and policies, rooted in and drawing sustenance from wider cultural systems of race, class, gender, and sexuality hierarchies. These practices are powerful, and support and perpetuate constructed norms that negatively impact the preparation, recruitment, and retention of Black women (Combs, 2003; Patton, 2004; Thomas and Hollenshead, 2001). So how do we thrive and flourish?

I wish that I had some magic answer, but indeed I don’t. One thing I do know is that good mentoring helps in our navigation of these troubled spaces.  There are enough books on mentoring to probably circle the earth. Many offer good words and advice on how to find a mentor. Consequently, I won’t spend my time rehashing these good tips.

Instead, I focus on those who mentor. Little is written for those of us on the other side of the mentoring equation. So I thought that as we enter into this new season of academe, I would write to those Black women who engage in critical mentoring.

The problem we continually face is the shortage of Black women who can serve as role models for those who aspire to successfully complete their degrees and possibly join the ranks of academia and for those of use once here to emulate. While academia espouses to inclusiveness, often the policies and climate portends otherwise. This has indeed been one of the most difficult challenges I face as a mentor. How do I survive and thrive while simultaneously supporting others in their quest to do the same?

1. I quickly learned that if I wanted to do well and survive in academia that I needed to establish boundaries . Here are a few techniques I used to establish boundaries: 

I 

·       I spoke with some of my more demanding students and informed them that there were times when I was not available although I was on campus. In order to gain their trust and assure them that I valued them, particularly because some did not feel valued and often felt neglected in this environment, I responded within the time frame that I indicated.

·       I work diligently to protect the boundaries between my time at work and my time with my family. Again, I have found that honesty helps my students to accept these boundaries. One tactic I use to ensure that I am available and attentive is to limit when I respond to emails. This has become even more of a priority with the introduction of smart phones.

·       I encourage students to seek solutions on their own. I have to resist the urge to “fix” the problem. Instead, I ask “What do you want to do?” Asking this question encourages mentees to critically think about what they want in their lives. Sometimes by simply posing this question they are able to think through a strategy on their own and I have to be willing to accept their strategy. This is a practice of self-empowerment encouraged by Black feminists. In order to help others and ourselves we have to recognize our strengths and our limits.

2. Consciously recognizing limitations: Indeed every mentor is not for me and neither is every mentee.

·       How do we reconcile that not all Black women are for us as we seek out mentoring experiences? How do we wait and see who is indeed for us? How do we reconcile our desires to be mentored by someone who looks like us but for reasons often unknown to us are not available to mentor? How do we acknowledge and push beyond the pain of mentoring experiences that end on less than a positive note? These are hard questions to confront. The key, again, is to be honest.

·       The racial-gender order of academia limits how many of us are able to walk the halls of academia. As a result, there can be sense of competition that is more harmful than helpful. Some of us become bruised along the way and as such might not be psychological available to mentor. At other times, the individual might not feel equipped to mentor. Or maybe the person simply has no interest in mentoring. Regardless of why that individual cannot be available to mentor we have to remember that everybody is not for us and vice-versa we are not for everyone.

·       As we explore our mentoring relationships we must be mindful of imposing our institutional expectations onto the bodies of a few.

3. You don’t have to be the only one: Expanding your circle of mentors

·       I have accepted that mentoring does not have to be my singular responsibility. My experience of being one of three Black women on campus, at least among those self-identified as Black, has resulted in me having to be creative in how I mentor.

·       Although I found myself in the position of being the only “one” openly, accessible, and available colleague, I made a conscious decision not to approach mentoring alone. My initiative involved organizing a group of women of color, from diverse disciplines, to engage in peer-mentoring.

·       I, and you, have to be creative in how we form community both within and outside of our institutions.

4.  Finding your own circle of mentors

   As a so-called mid-career faculty member, I find myself even more isolated in the sense that there is an increasing expectation for me to help others coming behind me, while I have limited access to women who are ahead of me. Given the limited number of Black women in my discipline, while I attempt to address the sporadic and haphazard interactions experienced by many of my colleagues, I am left with sporadic and haphazard interactions of my own. To address this deficit, I have reached out to others using Facebook and other social media in an attempt to have my needs met. Over time, I have transcended the boundaries of fields and geography to create a patchwork of support. Some of these experiences have been short-lived, but have filled the void at that time.

We work to create community where none exist. Mentoring networks are key to surviving and thriving in academia. We will benefit by developing a cadre of individuals who meet our diverse and evolving mentoring needs. For those of us who mentor, we have be ever mindful of replenishing our cup by being: conscious in our decisions to mentor, by being truthful and by working to actively protect our sprits.

Excerpted from “Black Women Occupying the Academy: Merging Critical Mothering and Mentoring to Survive and Thrive” in Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering and the Academy (Sekile Nzinga-Johnson, editor)

This is the first post of my 31-day blogging challenge. This is the also the first post under the general theme of “Coexsisting, Resisting and Thriving in Academe” which is the tentative title of a project I’m currently undertaking. 

“You have a Black President”: So What?

How do we think of the narrative of “you have a Black president”? What understandings of power, belongingness, and justice are embedded in this narrative? Janni Aragon and I take up these questions. We won’t be able to answer all of what is rolled into this narrative, but hopefully we can spark an ongoing critical conversation.

In a prior post, I wrote about my recent experiences with gendered-racism in this era of so-called post-racialism (this is part of the narrative “you have a Black president). Today, I want to focus on how such narratives hide the invisibility of Black women, particularly in the area of academic research. While I focus on academic research, we can also think of how this narrative hides the invisibility of marginalized and minoritized groups in health studies, such as HIV/AIDS and conversation on economic “recovery” among other issues.

            Simply put, Black women are disappearing as research subjects within our “leading” academic journals (Alexander-Floyd “Disappearing Acts” 2012) and within intersectionality research specifically. Many credit intersectionality research as an outgrowth of Black feminist standpoint theory and remind us that Black feminist standpoint theory is crucial to intersectionality, but in many cases a mere footnote or sentence makes this acknowledgment. However, as intersectionality travels and becomes increasingly popular, Black women are not being researched and if they are it’s in a rather limited manner. As a result of the often omission of Black women in research we have to ask: What story/stories is/are conveyed in not including Black women as research subjects? Finally, we have to ask what are the implications for our understanding of politics? Including Black women in our studies of politics, by centering their social, political, and cultural understandings, can broaden and (re)shape notions of how we study and ultimately understand politics.

I argue that this seen/not seen inclusion of Black women as research subjects, in intersectionality publications, is the result of the politics of research. Research is a political act and intersectional research is no exception. Researchers make decisions, which have political consequences, when they decide who can speak, whom they speak to, what they can speak about, what questions are asked, how we observe behaviors, and also how we measure such behaviors. The theories employed and the manners in which they are deployed and the method/methodological approaches utilized, like a picture, tell a story.

Black Woman and Intersectionality: The Politics of Research

As a concept intersectionality has gained increased popularity among some feminists and other scholars. This is occurring at the same time that Black women seem to be disappearing from political science scholarly works. The “early” works of Black feminists, specifically the works originating in the late 1980s/early 1990s, is sometimes cited—but not necessarily critically engaged by feminist scholars—and this is a form of distortion. Additionally, Black women are rarely treated as research subjects, particularly in intersectionality research. In my recent explorations of Black women as subjects in research length articles that employ intersectionality, I discovered that Black women are rarely, if at all, the sole subjects of such research projects, with and emphasis on the US. I focus on journal length articles as it allows me to identify trends and because “publications in leading journals are an important marker of professional status and a key conduit for the diffusion of ideas.” (Munck and Snyder 2007, 339) Additionally, the number of articles appearing in these journals serves as an indicator of the extent to which such studies are accepted by the scholarly community.

The data suggest that: research on intersectionality tended to treat Black women in a monolithic manner; only a certain group of Black women served as research subjects (primarily elected officials) and Black women were often researched in a comparative manner (particularly in comparison to other racial/ethnic groups of women). Comparative studies can be informative; however, they can also be limiting (see hooks 1991). Such studies can result in reinscribing differences and further marginalization as they can mask differentials in power relations between and within groups. This is not to suggest that all dimensions of comparative studies are inherently problematic for Black women.

Our analyses are also limited in terms of exploring how Black women create unique and specific narratives outside the formal institutions of politics. Consequently, questions such as: how are Black women who are not elected to office engaging and grappling with issues of intersectionality? How are they defining and responding to a multitude of issues that influence their daily lives? And, how are they defining themselves? tend to be ignored.

While we (Black women) are sometimes recognized vis-à-vis our contributions to intersectionality as a theory and concept, our scholarship and political work are blurred and if incorporated it is done in a manner that hints at a particular form of racial inclusiveness within a rather confined critical space. At the same time, it appears as if intersectionality as a method has become a catchall sort of term/method that includes everyone and everything. As a result of what we study and how we study Black women and even who is allowed to study Black women, the complexities of Black women’s politics remain underexplored. Excluded is the specialized knowledges produced by diverse Black women. This is what gets hidden in the narrative of “you have a Black president”.

This post is based on the article “Now you see me, now you don’t: My political fight against the invisibility/erasure of Black women in intersectionality research” published in Politics, groups and Identities (2013).

Works Cited

Alexander-Floyd, Nikol G. 2012. “Disappearing Acts: Reclaiming Intersectionality in the Social Sciences in

a Post-Black Feminist Era.” Feminist Formations 24 (1): 1–25.

hooks, bell. 1991. “Narratives of Struggle.” In Critical Fictions: The Politics of Imaginative Writing, edited

by Philomena Mariani, 53–61. Seattle, WA: Bay Press.

Munck, Gerardo L., and Richard Snyder. 2007. “Who Publishes in Comprative Politics? Studying theWorld

from the United States.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (2): 339–346.

I don’t see you as a Black Woman and other White women’s ramblings

A couple years ago I guest lectured for a colleague. Her class, a master’s level course, was discussing diversity and corporate America. I was asked to speak on my experiences as a woman of color in a majority White institution. I walked in and wanted to declare “yes indeed, I’m live and in color.” I sure did bring color to the room. But at this stage of my career, I’m, relatively speaking, accustom to being the “only one”. This is something that I live with, although I’m never really accepting of it—but that’s a totally different post. 

I did the standard introduction--this is who I am, here are my credentials, etc. Then I spoke to my experiences of disrupting racialized and gendered spaces. I told these MBA perspective students of my experiences of being stopped when entering campus. I’m sometimes stopped, although my parking decal is visibly displayed, and asked to identify which building I’m going to. I’m often asked, in a discreet manner, if I’m faculty. When I respond that I am, I sometimes hear “you look so young”. I don’t look that young. But I accept the flattery. My stop and ask experiences occur in the same library where some personnel request that students prove that they are actually students. 

As I speak, I see the look of discomfort on some faces. After all, these stories can’t be true. Some students discreetly look away from me. Some boldly stare me down waiting for their opportunity to show me how my experiences are not the result of race-gendered structures. One young man said to me that maybe I’m stopped as a result of the car I drive. With a smile I replied “I drive a Mitsubishi Outlander. I’m not rolling up in here on 20-inch rims blasting Snoop.” Over time, I’ve learn that humor is to racism was sugar is to medicine. Just a smile makes the bitter pill of racism go down (caution, this only works in some circumstances). One student asked if I’d considered that I was stopped as I result of my style of dress. “Oh, they can tell how I’m dressed as I sit behind the wheel?” was my response. But this is not what stirred my ire. 

What stirred my ire was the young White woman who declared “Oh, I don’t see you as a Black woman. I just see an intelligent woman.” This was meant as a compliment. However, I’m never sure how I’m expected to respond after such a declaration. Am I supposed to say good for you that somehow you have been able to evolve where race is no longer something you see? How does a 30-something-year old woman who has lived her entire life as Black respond to such a statement? 

 I responded by saying “You’re not going to like my response.” All the while with a genuine smile on my face. I then explained to her how this statement, in essence, erases me and fails to see me for who and what I am. I also asked her if she ever stopped to think how I wanted to be seen. For those who at this point might think that I’m bitter or the so-called angry stereotypical Black woman—I’m not. Just like my Italian-American neighbors I want to celebrate who and what I am. They wave flags, speak in Italian, name their children in so-called typical Italian names, yet rarely do I ever hear someone condemn them for doing such. So why can’t I be Black? I AM A BLACK WOMAN. This means something to me. And equally, it means something to others in the world who use my race to tell me how and what I should be in society.

I guess that I simply don’t have the privilege to define myself. Instead, I must be seen as the “intelligent” woman—as though my intelligence can be determined by simply looking at me. Or even worse, blackness and intelligence can't co-exist. So I'm required to pick one and only one--Blackness or intelligence. I also asked her why was it important to her not to see me as a Black woman and how this might result from her experiences while having nothing to do with Black women? I received a blank stare and then a tucking of the head. In an instant, I morphed from the intelligent Black woman to the evil Black woman because I resisted someone’s definition of me. 

Black women don’t seem to be permitted to exist in the imagination or even the social reality of some white women. Consider the recent article that appeared in a Utah Magazine titled “Utah Magazine Celebrates Women Of Color.” All of the women on the cover appear white. The picture under the heading displayed seven women all dressed in bright colored clothing. According to Taylor, who reported on the response to this piece,

“Our good friends at Gawker caught up with Bennett and she was completely clueless as to what the term means to the rest of the world. “That was not intended as an ethnic comment,” Bennett told Gawker when they called to ask her if she was familiar with the traditional understanding of the adjectival phrase in question. “It was just clever wordplay. It was that women add color, and there’s more than one meaning of color.” (emphasis added)

Vanity Fair, in 2010, show-cased rising stars on its cover. Amanda Seyfried, one of the stars gracing the cover, was interviewed on the View. Whoopie Goldberg asked her about the absence of persons of color on the cover and why she was surprised by someone asking her to reflect on this absence. She replied, “I hadn’t thought about it. I mean I hadn’t seen it….It’s true, but there is a lot of different hair color.” The conversation quickly turned to the wonderful women of color who had been nominated for Oscars and her other acting roles. Wow! There are diverse hair colors. Does this compensate for the marked absence of women of color? As I watched this, and even years later I am saddened, angered, and dismayed. I feel the same way after reading Bennet’s display and her claim that there’s more than one meaning of color. Even if Bennet didn't know of the politics of this naming process, there was no one at the magazine who knew differently? Theoretically I understand the absence of women who look like me from our cultural representations. However, psychologically it is painful to comprehend. 

The students, Bennett and Seyfried all seem clueless; clueless about their privilege and clueless about others’ experiences with race, class and gender. They are unaware of the struggles Black women, and women of color more generally, encounter in naming themselves. They are unaware of the politics of a self actualization. Not to belabor you with a history lesson, but the term woman of color originated in 1977. Yet, in 2012 some aren’t even aware of the term and the politics of this naming process. This speaks to a larger project that seeks to erase Black women from our social imagination. 

Planned Parenthood

Such erasure is not only taking place in the social realm, but it is also occurring in the realm of politics. Since the passage of the welfare reform legislation in 1996 do we speak of Black women in our policy discussions? Think about it. There is an alleged circle of sistas in the Obama administration. I dare you to name five of them without doing a Google search. Michele Obama has become a darling among some, is it because she is a Black woman or is it because she is a fashion icon that allows people not to see her raced body? Where are the Black women who publicly challenge our foreign policies? How are they positioned in the main-stream media? Where are the Black women in the discussion on reproductive health? Many critiqued the recent House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on religious liberty and the birth control rule for its representation of patriarchy—the hearing was dominated by men. Very few analyzed this hearing via a lens of race, gender, and class and their intersections. Where were the women of color at the hearing?

Not seeing Black women in our social and political realms and even in our imaginations (as in the case of the TV show Girls) is a telling story. This is part of a larger political and social movement to erase Blackness in the hopes that we “can all just get along”. The erasure of Black women speaks to the dark-side of multiculturalism; one that strives to encourage us not to see differences among and between groups. Seeing differences is not the problem. The problem is that people use differences to oppress. Multicultural teachings and ideals have not resulted in the dismantling of the oppressions. Instead, it has rendered the material consequences of differences invisible. Multiculturalism gives those in power the tools to ignore some segments of our community with claims such as I don’t see you as a Black woman. This claim suggests that I’m just like you. No I’m not. Race has real consequences. One only has to look at the rate of HIV infection among Black women—and no, this is not the result of higher promiscuity among this group or the actions of men on the down low. One only has to consider the rates of breast cancer and resulting deaths among Black women to realize that race and its intersection with class and gender still matter. One only has to walk the halls of academia to realize that, yes, race matters.

Black women are the canaries in the mine. We are disappearing and no one seems to notice. If we were ever in need of a Black feminist movement, the time is now.

Questions Regulate/ Knowledge Radiates: Black Girlhood in Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths

Ruth Nicole Brown--Guest Blogger

Just because we use the language of Black girlhood to organize SOLHOT

Doesn’t mean we operate within fixed identity politics. My name is Ruth Nicole

And I am serious about our beautiful complexity and our beauty.

When asked to write a guest blog, even though I am not a blogger, I said yes because I appreciate Dr. Julia Jordan-Zachery’s observation that we do not intentionally focus on Black girls enough.  In many conversations, organizing efforts, and academic reports I have learned not to assume that there will be a focus on Black girls, even if the topic is youth, gender, age, black people, hip-hop, organizing, arts, and/or producing knowledge. If I am wrong and Black girls are taken up as the focus, sometimes the images reflected back to me are so distorted that I do not recognize myself and the Black girls I know in Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT). SOLHOT is my practice of Black girlhood, a space consistently made to celebrate Black girlhood with Black girls and beyond in all of our complexity. What I know about Black girls, and how I give shape to words and images I create is informed by almost six years of doing SOLHOT.  Surely, this means that I do not speak about Black girls as a monolith nor as a generalization but rather when asked to share what I have learned about Black girlhood by doing SOLHOT, I am referencing a very specific group of people.  My hope is that in the lack of focus, intentional and unintentional misreadings, your practice of celebrating Black girls, and ours in SOLHOT, we can come to something most important that must be spoken, and written, and shared in preparation for something bigger, which we, as a whole, wide world, have yet to be.

The language of Black girlhood in organizing SOLHOT is insufficient mostly because it’s a misnomer. Those who do SOLHOT are not all Black girls, nor do some Black girls who do SOLHOT think that this is the most important thing about them. Nonetheless, I find Black girlhood discursively useful.  I have found that when we organize to create a space to celebrate the complexity of Black girlhood, the look received is of surprise, uncertainty, and a bit of skepticism, which is exactly the space out of which SOLHOT is intended to operate. “Something for me? For us??” are typical responses that instigate delight, wonderment, and excitement.  I mean we make it as big as we want—that is our right—but the idea that my Black girl existence is not an adjunct to someone else’s, presumably more important, is still a current idea even as the Combahee River Collective stated so in the1970’s. Certainly, one of the best things about doing SOLHOT and using the language of Black girlhood is that when breathing in the space of a Black girls’ gaze returned and turned out on you, critical knowledge, sacred relationship, and creativity flows over in abundance.  We do our best, when we live out of this space. Justice.

Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT) is a visionary space of Black girlhood liberation. We compose and choreograph Black girl poetics and we speak and enact Black womanists/feminists sensibilities and actions. The echo of June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Sakia Gunn, our mothers, aunties, and so many others is very present with us, you can hear what they taught us when we speak, as we write, in our practice. There are more than 3015,021,009 plus infinity ways of doing Black girlhood, Black girls in SOLHOT are clear about this, and there are seemingly just as many programs (too many of which focus on Black girls only to further control and discipline them).

But there is a space called SOLHOT- that is very much not a program, and I have a few stories that are mine to tell about it. As I do SOLHOT, I have become more aware that the conversations I prefer to have, cannot always be. For me this is particularly challenging because as I write this, I cannot be with you, see you, and ask the question, so what kind of conversation are we prepared to have today, among each other about Black girlhood? If we have decided that we should focus on Black girls, I want to know what informs your seeing and/or lack of vision.  When you see something, or in this case someone as a Black girl, I wonder if you presume to know them. For what purpose is your focus, and how does that implicate who we are, all together, and apart? Whose Black girl voice sounds your image-making mind? What kinds of actions does that sound move you to make? These kinds of questions are becoming increasingly important to me as a foundation for proceeding to discuss the issues that give meaning to Black girlhood, and to focus on Black girls in good faith.  But this medium, much like SOLHOT, does not provide for an uncomplicated knowing of where you and I stand, or an articulation of who is standing with me and who is with you. I proceed anyway. 

Kind of like the Black girl who shows up to SOLHOT for the first time, my check in is short and deeply observant- I’m watching you, reading me, and I decide on poetry. I share this poetic narrative as a way to highlight the work of SOLHOT as a methodology of Black girlhood that insists on valuing Black girls’ lives. Like many a first timer to SOLHOT, I am unapologetically and intentionally vague, however what I know about doing SOLHOT over the years is that even my critical Black girl cynicism offers you something to work with because it is above all else, a promise that my hand is extended out to you with an interest in being together, reaching toward some space beautiful that I can not get to alone.

 

Saving our Lives Hear our Truths (SOLHOT) is what we call the work we do when we gather with Black girls to organize, work together, and be. I suggested it as an idea because I noticed that in too many girl programs, Black girls were always getting in trouble for exercising skills which the program professed to value, like having and using a voice, being in one’s body, and exhibiting willfulness. I suggested SOLHOT as a way to organize with Black girls to create a creative space where we could come together and do something that was useful to our beloved communities and for us. The structure and content is decided by those who show up and is shaped by our individual and collective gifts in conversation with the issues that arise as significant in the places we live, work, and study. There have been hundreds of Black girls and women, at least between the ages of 11 to 55, who have found SOLHOT positively productive, but that is not really the point.  The point is that SOLHOT makes possible conversations and actions that depend on listening, compassion, and a sincere appreciation of what Black girls know. SOLHOT is not for those who know better, perfect people, or anyone interested in etiquette. SOLHOT is for those who can maintain a beginner’s enthusiasm even after five years and know that they do not know so they must unlearn.

SOLHOT feels as if it’s a new idea every Monday evening, every Tuesday after school (2 different places at the same time), and every Friday just before the weekend begins. If it didn’t occupy my thoughts daily, every minute, every hour, you could reduce my rush to get snacks--cookies and chips because that’s what they want and strawberries, grapes, and water because that’s what I need— to disorganization. But I arrive to the place we gather every time fully expecting a miracle.  I just know that she, he, and ze are going to be there and surprise us all with a word, a dance move, or/and a shrug of the shoulders. I am not disappointed.  We are abundantly miraculous. In spite of being called the visionary, it is always what I did not see coming which absolutely makes SOLHOT a personal lesson in the power of unpredictability. And a lesson in why and how not to get caught up on form.  And a lesson in knowing yourself, being well, so that you can share freely.

As of late, the sessions seem hard. Well, at least for us who are the oldest and have been socialized the longest to equate control with awesomeness, a followed agenda with success, replication with normalcy. We have gathered for almost six years now to celebrate Black girlhood and we learn in and out of celebration. The girls teach us how to make meaning in the double—the entendres, the Dutch ropes, the meanings, the takes, the whammies, the dashes, the steps, because they do know even as they insist, “I don’t know” and because “she ratchet,” really mans that non-sense is where it is at and time does not exist. SOLHOT is so contrary, so anti-, really not about the easy answer, the short cut, the product, the shiny happy faces, and the manufactured one-dimensional success stories. This is the thing, SOLHOT never meets our expectations and that is wonderful! We defy description, even this one, every time. If you have not already noticed by now, SOLHOT is not a program, but an opportunity to live. In the moment. Black girl to Black girl. Alive. 

What we do is what needs to be done — talk, make art, process, produce, get crafty, perform, gossip, read poetry, socialize, write, dance encourage, motivate, give hugs, receive, think twice, combat fear, grow, experience disappointment and non-satisfaction, laugh hard, organize, intend, and come to something specific. We lie, make fiction, write on paper, take photos, sit quietly, talk over people, question, critique, criticize, smile, high five, act on impulse, and share our wisdom. We relate, fight, disown, and become one. It’s nothing really, if it weren’t everything.  Love is at the center, regardless. That is enough.

Questions regulate: Are you a foot doctor? What are we doing today?  What’s for snack? How many real friends do you have?  Why Trayvon’s killer walking around here like he didn’t do nothing wrong?  Can you be my mentor? What do you think about that? Who want to fight you? Why they act like they better than everyone else? What he got to do with me?  Where the lady with the dreds? What is racism, like how do you define it and know if it is about race and not something else?  Let me see your nails? What you doing this weekend? Who is CeCe McDonald?  What can I do? Who do she think she is? Why? When we gonna do this again? What she say? How come? Who is that? Why? Who me? Why not?

Knowledge radiates: Sometimes I am the problem so it would best if everything were not up to me.  I’m gay and if you don’t like it, oh well.  Grown ass women know and respect whose land they are on and who was there first.  Just because I like bad boys doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. Don’t let the devil use you.  My name is a combination of my mother and grandmother’s — that’s what my daddy wanted. I am not ghetto. It is always the person defending herself that is caught and punished — not the one who started it. She ain’t SOLHOT. Don’t be messy. I am no one’s second choice. It is time to reconnect. I can’t tell you that.  Lemmme wwrriittee it lik dis cuz it ain’t meanttt for yuh to kno. I am not from this planet, but beyond.

There is a kind of Black girl who can handle Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths.

There is a kind of Black girl who liberates us all in SOLHOT.

There is a kind of Black girl who says that SOLHOT did as it’s name implies, saved her life and facilitated the speaking, hearing, and sharing of her truth.

There is a kind of Black girl who rarely shows up— middle to upper class, and/or overly scheduled, and/or raised by non-Black parents — we just have not had the honor of her presence in SOLHOT (that I know of).  

 There is a kind of Black girl who decides that SOLHOT is not worth her time. Much more regular are those who know mama, and mama as grandma, and grandma as the center of the universe. Those who participate are self-directed in every way, they who come skip volleyball to do so, or recognize SOLHOT as their first choice. These Black girls, most of them, anyway, question more than they claim to know except when it is about family, honor, reality, and themselves. Sometimes they appear disinterested even as they swore by pinky and intimately crossed their heart to be there, consistently without apology, taking up all the space and then some.

In the doing, I have met more than a few super Black girl womanist feminist scholar performer poet doer visionaries. Artists. They give. Collaborate. Think fast. Feel. Love always. They make the space of SOLHOT happen. They know full well the power of having a self and being selfless. They are for sure labeled “crazy” by those who are skeptical of their divinity exercised — but they are well, with haters and all, and in their right mind. They say to me, and mean it, “I love the girls, I love the homegirls, I love you, and I love myself.”  Not in this order and, as my own daughter always reminds me, not above who they know god to be, but the point is they mean love and practice it, at least every Monday evening, every Tuesday after school (two different places at the same time), and every Friday just before the weekend begins. 

But you do not know us and you don’t know this work.  As a rule, we resist being known completely. Black girlhood demands this of us.  SOLHOT would not want it any other way.  Possibility, connection, inspiration are found in the iterative process of coming together in company of Black girls who are also doing the same thing in her own where—our higher selves on higher ground, not alone.  In SOLHOT we delight in the complex genius of Black girls and beyond. We call on some of everybody to be right there with us, and we call them by name to be known and remembered.  Sometimes we fail in SOLHOT, and that is okay.  Sometimes it seems like it is falling apart, except that somebody came to SOLHOT who needed a hug and by the end of the session they received at least one. We learn as we teach— shells of memory and stories of re-memories push and pull us on the shoreline of survival towards liberation. Black girl genius remains obvious to us in SOLHOT in the distance and in the very middle of it.