Last summer, I was invited to write for a group book project about physician loss, in the various ways “loss” can be defined. Others were writing about their loss of a spouse, a child, a marriage, even a sexual harassment lawsuit. I was invited to write about my experience as a Black woman leaving academia, representing the loss of the only work community I had known for the prior 15 years.
I integrated the project.
My first draft was admittedly a mess, but that’s what first drafts are supposed to be: shitty. The point is to get something on paper. So, I accepted the feedback from one of the project leads humbly and graciously. The point of feedback is to make your writing better; to hear what works and doesn’t work from the eyes of someone who hasn’t been staring at the words so intensely for so long that they see words and punctuation and correct spellings that aren’t really on the page.
I felt the second draft was dramatically improved, but this time the feedback reminded me of the exact same things I was writing about: Of being the only one. One who is not believed. One who is not seen clearly.
So, for the third draft I changed my approach. I wrote directly to their disbelief and why they couldn’t attribute my experiences to racism as I had. I wrote about how Black girls and women are usually over-punished and under-believed just as I had been, while whole towns have been burned to the ground off the word of one White woman.
Angry. Defensive. Share more of your sadness.
This was the gist of the feedback I got from five readers of this third and final draft. There would be no more drafts. Their implied desire that I flay all my wounds open as a means of helping them understand what it is like to be a Black woman in this world without implicating Whiteness or racism (i.e. make them feel uncomfortable) was one that I could not fulfill. I wasn’t even willing to try. I withdrew from the book project. The project leads seemed relieved.
Only one, a White-presenting Jewish woman named Abby who I had met just months prior and became fast friends with, had a different take. She thought my piece was “brilliant” and was outraged at the reaction from the others. So outraged, she withdrew her piece too.
I was stunned. And deeply touched.
While I had talked to her about the situation because she was my friend, it didn’t even occur to me to expect, much less ask her to leave the project. Though I’ve taken many a stand over the years in the presence of many a White person who would refer to themselves as an “ally,” the last time anyone stood in solidarity with me was about 20 years prior—and they were all people of color. Not once, no never, never-ever-ever, has a White person stood with me when they had something to lose.
This is how the fuck you “ally.” It’s a verb.
Because of Abby’s solidarity, I wasn’t reduced to just another “angry Black woman going off again” to dismiss and ignore—like they did at least two Black women before me, I later learned. Because of Abby’s solidarity, they had to pause and at least contemplate the situation. They contemplated to the point of retracting their quick acceptance of my exodus and asking that I discuss the situation further.
I didn’t respond.
My primary take away? If more of us were willing to stand up for what is right and do so in solidarity, we would have been solved this racism and inequity shit by now.