A mini triumph had been made for every woman of color that attended Seaside Prep. We had a club room, an advisor and members- although it was only 3 members… That was besides the point though, a battle was won and the war was still waging but this would be a safe space to hide from it all. A week after our long discussion, me, Audrey, Laila and I sat in Mrs. White’s classroom along with a plate of chocolate chip cookies Audrey had made for the expected new members.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so excited for girls to come in and talk about their traumas from being in a PWI so we can all bond, this is so sweet!” Audrey says. Everyone let out a laugh, but the truth and unnerving part of the statement still had an effect. It was still sad that we all had so many experiences we were waiting to share because we had felt left out of our own peer groups. We sat talking about our days for a while and every time the clock hit a new 10 minute mark without a new face in the doorway, my heart sank down a little more. We were running out of time at an astonishing pace- the allotted time would end soon.
“Maybe nobody saw our posters,” offers Audrey. We both know that’s not the case but she gives me an apologetic sweet smile so I give her one back.
“Alright club I guess that means we’ll just have to commence with the three of us but that’s all we really need anyways,” the other girls smile along with me, but inside I feel like a complete failure.
I pull up my agenda slideshow projected onto the whiteboard and right beside it layed the introductory slides we had made especially for today that would go untouched. On the agenda for the day is making slideshows of our own culture and sharing them out the next day. Me and the girls have the best time, and time and time again we have the best time after school in the club room, time and time again it’s just us having fun in the club room.
1 week, no visitors, except for our occasional club check in with Mrs. White. Everyday we all grow so much closer, I was educated on so much about each of their backgrounds, their cultures, traditions and language but I can’t help but wish that there were other girls coming in that could be a part of it as well. The point of this club is outreach- and it’s not reaching out- not at all. We’d planned to host little parties and collaborate with the middle and elementary schools in our districts, which could offer girls who never see people like them mentorship by older girls who look exactly like they do. If I had an opportunity like that when I was a child, I can only wonder about how my self-perception may have been altered.
“Knock knock,” whispers Mrs.White, and all of our eyes dart up to meet Mrs. White’s old kind ones. They look sadder than usual today, which worries me. “I’m so sorry to have to say this but Dr. Winston has informed me that the club room isn’t being used properly because you young ladies don’t have enough student body turnout.”
As If things hadn’t already been going in the worst possible direction, from behind the tiny Mrs. White peeks a glowing head of silky brown hair, Everleigh. What a weird sight to see her in her regular clothes after school, she has on a pink sweatsuit and sneakers and somehow looks no different. “Howdy y’all,” she says in her fake drama club coded southern accent, “See I was looking to expand our journalism program because I really think it could do some real good for our school!” She giddily exclaims, “I spoke with Dr. Winston and we both think that expanding our quarters would be for the best,” the silence after kills me- nobody is going to object to her and she knows that. Something about always getting put in a box, making my own home in the box I was put in and then getting ripped from it, was getting tiring.
“Why exactly did you ask for our club room,” I said, startling myself more than anyone else in the room.
Silence.
“Oh…I just thought it would be the easiest to ask for,” Everleigh said, a confusion creeping onto her face. Of course she would look confused and I didn’t blame her, but this wasn’t going to be easy.
“Listen Ev, I’m really passionate about this club and I’m not going to give it up so easily,” I said. The confidence in my words sounded a little fake at first, because it was, but now it’s coming naturally. The other girls stay quiet and to the side as I put my foot down.
And then I put my foot down again, one in front of the other until I find myself outside of Dr. Winston’s door, my breath having to catch up to my step. I lift my hand to knock and the door opens inward. A startled Dr. Winston takes a jabbing step back into her office and I fall forward one foot in front of another just as before. She pulls herself together and tells me ‘please have a seat’, so I do, I sit and as soon as I do I start rambling.
The confidence I held earlier is completely out of my reach as I mutter, “What exactly did Everleigh ask for?” as an end to my tangent.
“She asked for your club room, in hopes to expand the newspaper quarters to 2 rooms. She also made a convincing argument that you didn’t have many people- 3 was it, yes 3,” she says to herself “I just don’t see the point of a club that has 3 people, do you?”
No point.
No point?
No point.
No point.
No point.
This was it, I was really in the hole now, even after my outburst of pent up anger with my school. I was so deep, so far down in the hole that I truly do believe that if I were to scream at the top of my lungs until the words clawed and scraped at my burning throat, nobody would hear me, nobody would hear or care enough to answer my cries. I am tired. So, so tired of screaming, of having to be the one to make change when everyone else gets to sit around in this whirlpool of racism and discrimination and hatred and not be touched by the current that keeps pulling me under. I am fighting for my life here, flailing my arms and clawing at the surface, begging the waves to just let up.
It’s been like this ever since I first came to this school, fourteen and young with my hair out in a soft afro of curls that framed my face. My mom had told me I looked beautiful, and that I should be proud of my natural hair. But nobody at school told me my hair looked beautiful. They snickered behind their hands in the hallways and asked me if they could touch it and if that was ‘my real hair’. I never wore my hair out again, but if it wasn’t my hair it was something else.
It was the comments they whispered under their breath, it was the jokes and the n-word scandals that they pretended to care about. It was the teachers who asked me to read the sections with the n-word written in them when we’d been reading To Kill a Mockingjay. It was all of it, every little thing that pushed me farther and father into this hole.
It was the fetishization, it was boys who expected things from me that I wasn’t comfortable with giving them because they ‘heard that black girls were freaky’. It was the fact that even in the midst of a room of people, I always felt so utterly and completely alone.
But now, I’ve made a home in my familiar hole. The hole they shoved me into. I’ve found two beautiful girls to stay with me and I don’t feel alone anymore. And now, everything I’ve fought to create is being ripped away from me. I did my best and now it’s all for nothing.
No.
I refuse to let it be all for nothing.
There are other girls like me here with holes of their own. And they deserve a home too, they deserve people to stay with them and make their holes seem less small. They deserve the company, the conversation, because the world feels so big and so unbeatable when you are forced to brave it alone.
“There is a point. The point is for girls like me to be in a place where we feel like we can be who we are and aren’t constantly being judged or put into a box or trying to adhere to someone’s expectations of us. And I know you don’t understand, Mrs. Winston, you can’t understand. But please try. Please let me try. All I need’s a week, tops. And if nobody else shows up, then I’ll give up the room, I promise. Just give me a week,”
Reluctantly, slowly, Mrs. Winston finally relents.
After leaving her office, my demanding steps lead me straight back to Mrs. White’s room, where I sit down at my desk between Laila and Audrey’s, purpose and determination fueling my steps like a burning flame. Both of them stare at me with wide eyes, their expressions hopeful. I can’t let the two of them down.
“So? What’s gonna happen?” Audrey asks.
“We have a week to gather more members. If we can’t, then we’re either going to have to switch rooms or shut down the club.” I say, and watch their faces fall.
“But there’s no other teacher that will sponsor us,” Laila says, her trimmed brows furrowing.
“And we can’t let the club get shut down. These past few weeks have been the best weeks at school I’ve had since middle school,” Audrey says, sadness dimming the brightness in her eyes.
“Yeah, so those aren’t options. Only thing to do is find a way to get the word out. We could try getting announcements made over the loudspeakers, get it put on the school news, maybe have Mrs. White advertise it in her classes-”
“I’d be happy to help you girls out. I’m very proud of you three, and I can only wonder how much better High School would have been for me if I had a space to go to like you three do.” Mrs. White says, pride causing her smile lines to deepen.
The three of us smile, and then get to work.
A tap on my shoulder feels like a stab, the pain startles me awake and I claw at my arm. So many nights painting and hanging posters caused a stinging pain caused a numbing tiredness. I look up and see Audrey giving me a concerned look.
“Look,” she whispers, gesturing to the right of us. Two girls stand before us, two beautiful girls appear in the doorway on the last day of the deadline like angels sent from heaven.
I almost break out in tears, right then and there.
“Hi!” energy comes to me like a jolt of lightning and I jolt upwards in my seat, my spine going rod-straight. “Thank you so much for coming, are you guys here for the club?”
“Yeah, we are. We saw one of you guys’ posters outside- are you still accepting new members because we’d love to join!” the taller one exclaims.
Aubrey shoots up out of her seat, grabbing the clipboard from her desk and basically running over to where the two girls are standing, as if they’d disappear if she got there a second later.
“We’d love new members, please just sign your names here. What are you guys’ names?”
“I’m Val and this is Lola,”
“Val and Lola, I think you guys might be my new favorite people,” Laila says.
“As a Hispanic girl I just feel like people sexualize me and make me into something that I’m not in their minds,” Val says, head leaning on her hand and a faraway look in her eyes.
“Like they’re putting you into a box before they even know you?” I amend, finishing her sentence.
“Exactly,” she nods, a smile pulling on her lips.
“People are always making jokes about my race and about my being mixed- like calling me white when I’m not and asking if they can touch my hair and making me question my identity when I already know exactly what it is,” Lola says.
“Like I know who I am but some part of me just wants to comply and be who everyone tells me I should be,” Audrey hums.
“Because that would be so much easier,” Laila nods.
“But it wouldn’t be easier, if you think about it. It wouldn’t be easier to deny yourself and to live a lie just because that’s what other people want. You’d have to give up yourself, who you are,” I contradict, my voice gaining speed and enthusiasm as I speak.
“I thought complying would be easier too. And I tried to do it, to be like them, and I failed over and over again. Being yourself, despite the stereotypes, is hard but at the end of the day, it’s the only way to be,” Val agrees.
“Having a group like this, being around people like me who think like I do makes it way easier to find myself and to love what I find.” Laila says, a melancholy semblance of a smile on her face.
“That was the goal,” A content warmth fills my chest as we meet for the third time past the deadline. Two weeks ago we gained five new members on the sign-up sheet, meaning that our club officially had ten people in our club, and more counting. This week, only the five of us take up Mrs. White’s room, but as long as it keeps Everleigh out, then we were golden.
5 was enough right now.
As the weeks rolled by people rolled in new faces, people I had somehow never seen before. School can be isolated, especially for girls like us, but we brought people together in a way that no other club could or ever has. They told me so themselves. Told me how much the club meant to them- how much they looked forward to our meetings- a space full of laughter, freedom and safety.
I compare the way I felt before the Women of Color Club. Before I met Audrey and Laila. Before I felt at home in the space I attended everyday. Before I had girls to walk in the hallways with, to sit at lunch with, to see movies and go to the mall and be girls with. Girls of color, who educate each other about our respective ethnicities and celebrate our distinctive features and skin tones and come to the realization that our differences are what make us beautiful.
They lived in my box with me. They helped make a space that I was crowded into a home. And I am forever grateful to them for it.
