Authenticity is Valuable, Even When People Turn Their Back On You.
A couple of days ago, I worked up the courage to email the liberal arts organization that funded my anthology, and share the official webpage of She Holds The Line.
When I initially applied for that grant, I used slightly softer language in the book title eg. “Identity” instead of “Ideology”. I also did not have a fully fleshed out written summary of the book.
I was very honest about what I wanted to create…but the philosophy behind the anthology is much bolder and clearer now, than it ever was in its infancy. So in a way, it felt like I was coming out about my views in a way I previously hadn’t.
It’s weird. Many people never expect me to think the way I do because of who I am and what I look like. So when they are presented with my perspective in bold print, I feel like I am piercing through a matrix with a cloak of invisibility.
In one way it is a power, but it also leaves me feeling misunderstood at times. I realize that it takes a certain clarity for some people to even process my very existence.
There is always the question of, “How can you possibly be?”
People who are used to placing black women into ideological boxes often misinterpret me, even when I’m literally showing them otherwise—because they are so brainwashed that their imagination has grown inflexible.
It’s either love or hate. If they want to love me, the only way they can love me—is by painting me as something that I am not. Because, the alternative is to hate me.
And yet sometimes—the hate never comes, because I don’t fit the narrative of someone they’re supposed to hate.
But they later realize they can’t love me either-because I don’t fit the script.
So what happens in that liminal space? (((Up next on the twilight zone)))
Anyway, I knew I deserved the funding but I was always scared that someone in that organization would discover the true contents of the book and I’d get cancelled all over again. So initially, I thought about not sharing my completed project at all.
I didn’t have to; there were no obligations for me to report how I spent the money, or even to finish the project within the proposed timeline. I was totally off the hook.
However, I decided to let them know, because I wanted to ask them to be my reference for other creative endeavors. Over the next year, I will be applying to other opportunities that require a recommendation letter (yuck!), and part of my email was to ask if they’d be willing to support me.
I could have very well asked them to recommend me, while hiding my anthology...
But It was important to me, that they at least knew what I produced with the money; that I was an excellent steward of the thousands of dollars they gave me; that I not only managed to create and publish the book within less than a year, but I also received another grant to create an accompanying talk show-style video with my authors, and market it to the extent that it has become a #1 best-selling new release within its niche on Amazon.
I say I’m proud of myself, and I wanted to stand in that pride.
Sharing my work was a personal practice of owning my greatness and not shrinking in the shadow of other people’s fears.
In doing so, I braced myself for potential backlash and coldness. And that’s exactly what I got—in the calmest way possible.