I don't always know what I be doing.
I just be doing shit.
Rocking out on a whole bunch of faith.
And this peace in knowing that everything is going to work out.
But what I've realized is that I have always been able to do that from the comfort of my own home.
In all of the senses.
And when I'm not at home, I still possess some sort of control around what my experience is.
I'm usually good at finding my tribe. My set of folks to hold me over till I get back home.
I know my house in an intimate way.
You know, don't flip that light too hard before the plastic plate falls off onto the floor.
And the broom is always going to be tucked away somewhere, usually next to the fridgerator.
I know my house the same way I know our racism and prejudice here in America.
I mean, with 37 years of experience in a place designated as home because of where my Black parents did it and where my Black mama happened to be when she went into labor at a Black ass hospital in a Black ass urban city during the crack epidemic ...
I feel like a subject matter expert in this shit.
But just like I've experienced in the work that I do, it's always gone be somebody not living the experience that's gone try and convince you that that ain't enough.
Whatever.
Frankly, very seldom do I get surprised by the shit that I've seen people, usually white folks, in power do to the people who they view as beneath them.
The words get switched up.
Policies that conveniently change.
The bar that stays moving...
You know, that type of shit.
I'm used to it. I sort of anticipate it.
Rural Georgia raised me.
I mean, come on, we are watching some of the most wicked acts against humanity happen right now.
Since it ain't no grand escaping this shit, I just be tryna make the best of whatever comes my way.
If we're honest with ourselves, we would admit that these folks don't give a damn about you or me.
Wouldn't matter what color you was.
Your bank account and assets just ain't enough to get you into that delusional behind realm of folks.
But to tell you the truth, I don't really gaf about them either.
A sister girl is just tryna survive these +/- 100 years that I got and praying for Jesus to come back like they said, cus these people really down here wilding.
My daddy told me he's been waiting on Him to slide through since he was a kid too though.
Since it ain't no grand escaping this shit, I just be tryna make the best of whatever comes my way.
This trip to South Africa has been something I can't shake though.
I feel like I carried those feelings of defeat and helplessness that I felt while there back with me.
Beforehand, I was hype to touch a continent that I had only dreamed about going to.
Excited to meet the people and learn as much as I could so I could come back and tell yall.
And nervous.
I had never been that far away from home or been gone that long.
Plus that man in the White House stay on that bs.
Lawd, please just bring me back home the same way I'm leaving.
While I made it home in one piece (thank God), this trip totally changed me.
This ain't got nothing to do with the continent of Africa or the country of South Africa itself.
It's merely my experience.
The parts of the country itself that I had a chance to see, beautiful!
The people that we got to meet, I will never forget!
But that feeling...
That motherucking feeling...
That ain't something that just goes away overnight.
And I'm sort of glad that it didn't.
Cus I almost took this one on the chin like I have so many other times.
Like that time when I was a kid and the white girl on the playground let me know she couldn't play with us cus we was Black.
Everything was all cool till her dad saw it happening.
I ain't do nothing. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Try to convince her dad that I was worth playing with?
Nah. I just think about it from time to time all these years later.
Or that time not too long ago when that white man reprimanded me instead of the light skinned Black lady who was his real target.
Because you know, we all look alike.
I ain't do much there either. I wasn't fucking with no white man in power. I'll take the sorry and be on bout my merry way.
Or the other times that harm has been packaged up, put in a little pretty expensive bow, placed in my lap, and I'm somehow expected to be excited that the wrapping was sparkly???!
Neeeeeeeeeggggaaaaah.
I don't give a fcuk bout no damn pretty harm.
You can keep that shit.
And now, somehow I'm ungrateful because you can't convince me to tell you that the crock of cow shit on my plate is a delicacy.
Ungrateful – I am not.
For that bullshit – I am not either.
I got a question.
When we talk about safety, is it for the narrative of the person telling the story or of the one living it?
We'll come back to this.
Anyways, my spidey senses started waking up on the airplane.
It wasn't enough Black people on the plane from Atlanta to Johannesburg for me.
Many of the men were assisted by their women and their rifles.
Traveling across a whole big ocean to come hunt animals on a whole different continent.
Already not my type of people.
But cool, that's what they got going on – not me.
I sat there and did what a lot of people seem to have a hard time doing...
I sat there and minded my gyat damn business.
Get me to safety.
But that shit wasn't to be found on the next airplane to Pietermaritzburg either.
I couldn't figure out if it was something that I said or what.
But this lady stared.me.deown! from the time we sat down in the boarding area till them wheels touched the ground at the smaller airport.
... only to be interrupted by the fact that we had to stand up and actually board the plane.
I was like the 7th person in line as we waited for the lady to start scanning the boarding passes and watched this white man come out the middle of nowhere to the front of the line because he assumed nobody was in the elite flyer program he was in.
I mean, I wasn't but still.
You ain't even gone ask nobody?
(you ever have that happen to you? you in one of the earlier boarding zones like first class and somebody else tries to skip you in line cus they just assumed you wasn't on they level? SALTY. now take ya stuuupid ass to the back of the line, hoe.)
But you can't say all that.
And I sure couldn't now.
He was right, I was exactly where I was intended to be.
We all were.
But by now, them spidey senses were itching.
Sitting there looking crazy tryna piece together how I always envisioned the continent of Africa to be filled with people who more likely fit the description of the people we read about in books like the Bible but yet my experience so far ain't looked nothing like that.
The more time went on, the more I felt the fact that apartheid in South Africa only ended in 1994.
31 years ago.
So when I scoped the scenery of my BNB that was owned by this obviously very wealthy rich white couple and saw the artwork on the pillows:
... and when I expressed my discomfort it was explained to me by a white woman that in South Africa it's different.
That the artwork was being looked at incorrectly.
To prove her point, she grabbed the closet Black person (who happened to be staff working at the property) and asked him what does he think about when he sees the picture of the three men?
This man said, "Brotherhood".
Bruuuuuuh.
It was when the lady called the second Black person via WhatsApp that I mentally checked out.
Obviously, I don't know what I'm doing here and need to go back home and start over with a different destination.
But I couldn't.
I was over 8,000 miles away from everybody that loves me.
Back home in America, I'm pretty hip on the things to look for to see whether or not I'm welcomed, welcomed.
Or if I'm just fake welcomed and being tolerated.
If I see a Trump flag in the yard, I'm cool.
And like that lady said on social media, if I see too many American flags, I'm also cool.
But I ain't know what those types of Blue's Clues were here.
When we checked out from the BNB, the owner lady told me that "we should focus on the positive" when I gave honest feedback about my stay.
Get me back to the house.
To tell you the truth, I felt safer in the places that we were warned against.
Like in the Uber that we were advised that we should never, ever ride in because they are so dangerous.
Our driver was cool asf.
28 year old dude whose favorite rapper is Young Thug.
Now come on! My type of people.
I felt safer in the marketplace amongst the people where we were advised to keep our phones close to us.
Yea, I don't be walking about all willy nilly with my phone out back home in Philly neither.
The crowded gas station ain't scare me.
It was sort of like the commotion you would see back home up by Broad and Olney.
I mean, it's not real safe so you just jump out the car and lock the doors real quick, grab what you getting and get the hell on.
The only difference with this one was I couldn't understand none of what the men was saying.
Those spaces felt so familiar to me even when experiencing them among a different culture of people.
Cus in the clurb we all fam.
Now I ain't naive enough to think that I've mastered somebody else's social norms in a 10 day trip.
But what I will tell you is that I am going to use common sense at all times.
Tip: Don't wait till 3am to take a brisk outdoor walk no matter where you at.
That just aint the type of stuff we do where I come from.
But I just want to know how come I wasn't warned to put my phone up when we was in the nice little grocery store with the people dressed in they nice little uniforms?
All cap. Because I know the answer already.
Rural Georgia raised me.
But it ain't prepare me for this shit.
Hearing "colored" when referring to someone's multiracial ethnicity was hard.
The condescending conversations from the Indian men in a random restaurant because they just couldn't figure out how we could afford to be sharing the same space with them was stupid.
The realtime realization that when we fight for ourselves, we are also fighting for others was not anticipated.
I came home drained.
Happy as ever to see that American flag on the other side of customs.
Not because everything is all good here.
But because I can at least create my sense of safety, defined in my own terms.
In my house. Where I am welcomed.
Cus anything other than that, I'm cool on.
No matter how pretty the bow is.
What not to do: Don't think you know and have no idea.
South Africa was wonderful!
But please, get me outta here and back to the house.
+ Ci Ci +
I would like to thank my community, including my close group of friends and family and The Well Project staff for keeping me together while I was away.
I needed yall.
This blog was originally posted on Healing is Voluntary
