Hey y’all guess who’s back, back again. Back to say goodbye (wipes tear). No, seriously it’s been lovely writing to you all (crickets chirp, because the audience is actually vacant), along the way I’ve truly learned a lot about myself, especially since all the while I imagined that my blog was being read by all the great writers, or maybe some future fans that searched my name up after finishing my book and found this hidden in the depths of the internet (I promise you can read this even if you aren’t me or my future kids). This class has really helped me take myself seriously as a writer, but also shown me that I should write for myself as I have always been and yet not be afraid to let others see me, the writer me, even if she is vulnerable and passionate and still unsure of who she is (please excuse how corny this is, when I wrote it I was being sincere). I feel stronger, more encouraged and certainly lucky to have shared this journey with you beautiful folks.

When I was first informed that I needed to start a blog, I was actually very literally shooketh (urban dictionary it if you don’t get it). I mean there’s only one thing I hate more than sharing my writing (and therefore my emotions, myself) with people and that is the pressure of having to know if it’s liked or how much it’s liked. I’m the type of person that posts a photo to Facebook or Instagram and watches for likes (and deletes the picture if it doesn’t get more than 20 likes in the span of 4hrs, depending on the time of day, of course, I’ve got it all figured out), so this was definitely a struggle. It’s been fun though, kind of like struggling through a project and then being so proud when you see the finished result because you know it came from you, and all your hard work and determination. I’d like to thank you all for being there, right beside me (likely laughing at my foolishness or perhaps judging me secretly) as I poured my heart and soul into this blog and I’d like (please I’m begging) if you could join me as I switch platforms sometime in the short future. On my next blog I will be sharing some excerpts from a book I’ve been working on as well as some other pieces I’m passionate about.

I love and appreciate you more than you could ever know! I’ll be posting the link to my next blog as soon as it’s up and running and I really hope to see you there. So as my grandmother always says, “I’ll do you like the farmer did the potato, plant you now and dig you later”.

Do you know that saying, “I’m black and I’m proud,” well for a long time I wasn’t so proud of my ethnicity/race because I was actually afraid of it (this will make sense soon). Much of my writing is memoir about my experiences growing up and as I’m sure you could have guessed being black was somehow always at the forefront of my experiences. It’s really the first thing people notice about others (yes, even you), whether you like it or not, upon first sight you’re grouped with a certain race and gender and then by default you’re linked to a million stereotypes (and luckily if you’re a black girl 90% of those stereotypes are negative, lit, lit)  that people use to gauge how they interact with you and make certain assumptions about who you are.

Growing up, non-black people would ask me things like “Is your hair real?” (if you have to know, the answer is maybe, but mind your own business), “Do all your siblings have the same dad?”, “But you’re not that kind of black right?” (because the other type is bad? What’s good with you?)  and a personal favorite: “So do you, like, live in the hood?” (yes, and my street name is C-Killa) . As if all these random and awkward questions weren’t enough other black other little black kids made me feel excluded from my race too (this was before everyone was calling each other black queens, and talking about black girl magic etc.), “You know Courtney is a white girl name” (oh? But I’m a black girl so?), “Why do you talk like a white girl?” (You mean speak articulately? Idk, man), “Do you even listen to any black music?”, “You’re not really black, you’re lightskin because the white is seeping out of you” (this was actually pretty clever, I’d respond snarkily, but I’m still in awe (it’s been 6 years)). It was really just super fun stuff coming from all different kinds of people, which made me have low self-esteem and basically avoid social interaction (no worries, I’m back and I’m betta).

I didn’t know it back then, but whenever I wrote about how I’d had a bad day in my diary it was linked back to my race in some way. I always hated how much my race defined me in the eyes of others, especially since somehow it also became an obstacle. Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote about 2 years ago, for an assignment where I was told to reflect on my transition into high school:

“Exiting a school where being black was the norm and entering BHSEC where I was the only black person in most of my classes was an intense change. I didn’t even recognize the extreme change until saying “Is it because I’m black?,” in a class was viewed as a serious question to the teacher, as I was the only black student in class, rather than the classic joke it was in my old school. I remember posting a picture with white girls from my advisory and receiving comments from my middle school friends like; “You’re finally with your people” and “Lmao I guess you’ve made it to where you belong.” I actually figured the same things, because these girls didn’t mention my race, they didn’t even seem to notice at first, and I didn’t feel left out because of that. This only lasted a short while, however, I was soon exposed to the fact that race was very much noticeable to them, and the questions began. I got the “So, what are you?” from many people of all backgrounds.”

Today, I still write about the struggles of being black and a woman, but also about what that struggle means on more of a national and communal level, due to all the great stuff that’s been happening to people like me (and how much people like to make excuses for murders I guess).

Surprisingly, I found myself very interested in all of the topics of activism we explored during our week at Southampton. I have to admit, though, looking over the topics before the class began I looked at my mother with my eyebrows turned up, because I had no idea what Coastal Apathy or Urban Blight meant and more importantly, I didn’t like the idea of being forced to write about stuff I didn’t understand or really care much about.  I’ve always been the kind of writer who will write a beautifully written academic essay, with great evidence to support my thesis and nice transitions within the body paragraphs (I’m not bragging, there’s a point to what I’m saying), but I’d do so very unwillingly, literally complaining the entire time I wrote. It’s not as though I had anything against what I wrote, but I don’t like prompts or really structured writing, because it stunts my creativity and causes me to overthink every single aspect of my piece. “Is this actually what the prompt was asking for? Do these ideas even connect? Should this be a separate paragraph? Is this how one grammars?”

Anyway, back to my point (because I was straying from the prompt again…). I really enjoyed the excursions and little talks we received about each of our topics, because it helped the prompts feel less restricting. The first day was my most productive writing day, and helped me produce a great story that I am passionate about. The talk that Fish Guy gave was really inspiring because it related so much to what I do at one of my jobs, as a Restoration Corps Worker on Jamaica Bay. Still, as much as I enjoyed that talk and all of the photos, and really do care about the treatment of our ocean/water (because it’s mostly me cleaning the literal trash out of the water and shorelines 10-4 every Monday-Wednesday), the reason I wrote so much that day is because the prompt was so broad instructing us to simply mention 4 of the 5 senses and not forcing us to mention Coastal Apathy. While I do talk to people about this topic, and feel passionately about it, I couldn’t work the topic into my story naturally, so I wound up leaving it out.

The second day, was much more difficult for me, simply because I felt more obligated to relate my story to the activism cause after that really inspiring TED talk that reminded me so much of my neighborhood. That day, we were also pressed for time and I had taken so many pictures that I couldn’t choose which one to write about. At the time, I decided to ignore the picture and just start writing about my experience with Urban Blight and things I learned in one of my previous classes about how you’ll find more non-residential/city/government buildings in the poorer/more black neighborhoods because the land is cheaper and they don’t really care about polluting the air for our black lungs. In my neighborhood we have the Sanitation Department, the Airport, about 5 supermarkets, numerous clothing departments, tons of hotels, and about twice as many long-term parking spots. That story, however sounded very bland (sorry to make you read even that section) and list-y, so I threw it away and wrote something new about what happens in the abandoned buildings in my hood, and I liked that story much better.

As a black female, you’d think income inequality would mean much more to me than it does, but frankly I’m only 18 and I’ve managed to get two well paying part-time jobs (and my parents still feed and shelter me), so I haven’t been filled with rage about that yet. The first thing that came to mind, while sitting in this beautifully groomed library garden, was how much my paternal family struggled growing up on a farm in a southern state where racism was disgustingly evident. I came up with a story that is somewhat modeled to be on the farm my family owns in Edenton, North Carolina, where the road that runs adjacent to it was never paved because it was on the side with black folk. To this day, just a short drive north of the farm will be full of former plantation houses, new white and beautifully built, all because white people were equipped with the tools (yes, even slaves y’all) to be successful and to this day many southern black families are suffering from the institutionalized racism that left them less educated and pays them less. Still, the word choice prompt made my story much more difficult to write, but it turned out alright if you ask me.

Anywho, day four was great because we got to visit the wildlife refuge (one of which I also work on), which was ridiculously beautiful and contained about 4x the amount of animals I was expecting it to. As someone who owns about 15 pets (some of them are fish y’all), and grew up with a total of about 30 at various different points, I felt passionately about the animal abuse topic, but again, the prompt tripped me up. I am a person who loves to write from the perspective of people, so having to anthropomorphize an animal in my story was very difficult for me. Eventually, I decided to write from the perspective of an animal kept in a pet store (fitting because many of my reptiles and my frogs came from a pet store), since I’d just seen a video about how Petco keeps their animals in terrible conditions. I hope that anyone who reads this piece will become more aware of how even a place that claims to care about animals may not necessarily treat them right.

Finally (been waiting for this one), Intolerance. As y’all may have noticed I am very passionate about my race, my culture, my people and when my professor said it was a free-write (ooh child, literally real tears of joy fell from my eyes), y’all know I was hype. I loved this activism topic, because it’s pretty much always somewhere in my writing. It’s hard for me to separate my experience/perspective as a black female from anything I write, because it’s really something I can never forget. My skin complexion literally gives me a unique experience in this world and I want people who don’t know what that’s like to hear it from me, and people who know exactly what it’s like to know that they are not alone in their experiences. The talk we heard from Robbye Kinkade was inspiring because she helped me understand that I shouldn’t be afraid to write what I feel just because I don’t want to offend or make people uncomfortable, and that is what will stick to me most from this week.

Do you remember how when you were a kid and something bad would happen to you, but no matter how horrible you thought it was whoever you tried to tell about it didn’t seem to care nearly enough? Well, back in 2006, eight-year-old me had enough of that nonsense and decided to just write down all of my grievances so that one day I could show them to someone who actually cared.

That’s really where it all began. Fast forward to 2008 and I’ve upgraded to a diary with a lock, a different set of grievances, and no interest in sharing them. The opening page of this diary reads: “If you’re reading this, you should either be me in the future or one of my kids, who has my permission to read this. IF YOU ARE NOT, PUT THIS DOWN! IMMEDIATELY! SERIOUSLY! YOU DO NOT HAVE MY PERMISSION TO PROCEED!”

Since then, I have written over 2,000 entries and pieces about my thoughts, questions, and concerns, the ones I still believe have more significance in writing than when spoken and kept them to myself. One day, when I’m confident enough that someone will care just as much as I want them to, I plan to remove my writing from its safe haven. Until then, I’ll be sharing a few things with you.