Thoughts on Belonging and that Meghan Markle Interview

These days I am thinking about what it means to be a Black woman. I am thinking of Sonia Sanchez’s

“who’s gonna take

the words blk/is/beautiful

and make more of it

than blk/capitalism?”

I am not thinking of Jessica Krug or Rachel Dolezal but of how in the world these white women kept and keep getting put on by Black folks if everybody stay puffing their chests out insisting that they are ready to burn all this shit down?

Word?

Say word.

Does the kindling only come in white supremacy? Or is colorism too hot in these streets? Too irresistible?

I am thinking of who gets automatic empathy and who scrabbles around for concern so thin we might as well just turn on the stove and cook up something ourselves. At least we wouldn’t have to beg.

I am thinking of light skinned and mixed race women’s ire at some Black women deciding Meghan is not Black. As if Black women withholding their emotional labors and energies deals Meghan a mortal blow from which she will never recover. As if every Black woman not clicking their tongue and sighing, “Poor baby” for a woman who asked, no insisted, that the British family “use her as they see fit” is committing a treasonous act. I am wondering why more light skin and mixed race people aren’t commending darker skin Black folks for being skeptical, for holding Meghan accountable, for asking, “To whom do you belong?” Is this not how you ensure that the powerful among you are indeed allied with the less powerful, the less privileged? If a white woman wants to prove that she is indeed down for the cause, do you simply believe her? Wait, don’t answer that. Jessica Krug and Rachel Dolezal already did. But consider your thoughts.

I’ll try a different track. How is it that light skin women and mixed race women simply need to show up to receive care and concern but darker skin Black women are dismissed with a pat on the head and sent away with, “Black comes in all shades” when showing our scars? How are the loudest voices often accompanied with shades most prioritized, valued, and esteemed within our communities? How does this crowd out other voices? Oprah asked if Meghan was silent or silenced. Silencing comes from all shades, beloveds.

I admire fierce women. Women who chart a path and make it happen. Women unconcerned with being labeled “too assertive.” Megan thee Stallion, Trina (the 1998–2019 years. We won't talk about 2020 Trina.), Toni Morrison, Mia X, Gina Torres, JT and "Yung Miami" of City Girls, Meghan Markle. I watched Meghan on Suits and found out she was a foodie who wrote a blog called The Tig, traveled, engaged in charity, and bent the world to see it her way. She, by her own self-definition, was neither white, nor Black, but mixed. None of my business but it made sense to me. (Y’all haven’t grown up with mixed people who identified as mixed? I’m flabbergasted by people who believe mixed race is not a legitimate racial category.) It also wasn’t my business when she married Harry. I wished her well but knew there would be trouble on the horizon because well….She married into a notorious crime mob family. The Syndicate if you will. It saddened me to see her almost break down in tears years ago because she had seemed so lighthearted and happy before marrying her crime mob boss.

BUT.

I also saw a woman willing to be degraded for the status that marriage conferred her. Which is to say, we’ve all dated or married someone who didn’t deserve us. Someone we changed our entire lives for so that we could orbit their earth. When Meg said she’s already lost so much, I thought of the baby she lost last summer. I thought of her unscrupulous father. But I also thought of her blog, her travels, her career. True, she didn’t actually lose these things. She gave them up. For a man ashamed of her suicidal thoughts while she was carrying HIS child. The best he could do was have her accompany him as his accessory during a business meeting. That’s love you see. I heard her say that she would return to her husband’s treacherous family if only they would have her. I saw a woman deluded by a narrative telling her that care, empathy, and kindness were all her birthright by virtue of her appearance. This is a fiction no Black woman over the age of 30 willingly indulges in. It is dangerous and leaves you cracked open, bruised and bleeding. Delusions of this scale will have you seeking love from empty hallways. From the very people hating the breath you draw from your lungs.

I am thinking of how a 39-year-old woman can continue to believe in such fictions. True, age is no indicator of wisdom. But it’s something right? An inkling. A tingle. A sense that you know when the singer is going to pitch up for the high note and then down for the low one. I am thinking of why Meghan desires to belong in a family that does not, will not, cannot love her back.

She already has the love of so many. Those eagerly awaiting the arrival of her third child to see if her hair will be kinky just like they awaited the announcement of Archie’s name because they just knew Meghan was going to give her child a name shared by most Black boys. Those loudly declaring their hopes that Archie marry a dark-skinned woman.

Hold on.

Full stop.

DARK SKIN BLACK WOMEN ARE NOT LITMUS TESTS FOR ANYONE’S RACISM, COLORISM, MISOGYNOIR, TEXTURISM, FEATURISM, ETC. Read that slowly and again until it sinks in. If you struggling with colorism, I feel bad for you but dark skinned Black women got 99 problems and don’t need another one.

Dark skin Black women deserve to be cradled in sun-lit fields of hibiscus so tall they peek out to kiss their necks. They deserve love as easy as Sunday morning.

And now the low note: When you have the love of so many, why squander it longing for the decaying corpses of despots?

To whom must she belong?