{"id":3490,"date":"2015-11-30T20:08:21","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T20:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shalominthecity.com\/?p=3490"},"modified":"2015-11-30T20:08:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T20:08:21","slug":"saving-my-daughter-from-the-single-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shalominthecity\/2015\/11\/saving-my-daughter-from-the-single-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving My Daughter From the Single Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In my purse right now is a letter from my seven year old daughter to Ellen.\u00a0 Her letter is written on unlined computer paper in four different marker colors with sentences all topsy-turvy crooked. The words are smushed together at the edges of the page where she ran out of room \u00a0and it\u2019s signed in her very best handwriting,\u00a0thankyouverymuch!<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Throughout her letters are words like, \u201cdance\u201d, \u201chelp\u201d, \u201cMama\u201d and \u201cworried\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrinity, what are you doing?\u201d\u00a0 I ask noticing her stuck out tongue in concentration as she sounds out \u201cdear\u201d and \u201ctrip\u201d. I\u2019m washing dishes in the immaculate kitchen of the family I nanny for.\u00a0 While her brothers play with my charges, she\u2019s sits at a table and writes a letter I completely by her own initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m writing Ellen for help\u2026how do you spell, \u2018dance\u2019?\u201d she answers all innocence and concentration.<\/p>\n

Confused, I wiped the counter down and sit across from my daughter.\u00a0 She has matching red marker smudges on her cheek and forefinger, I ache to reach over and wipe it with a tissue, but that would distract her from her work. \u201cWhy are you writing Ellen?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause when we planned our trip to see the first black Cinderella in New York City, it was so much money!\u00a0 Mama, I\u2019m worried it won\u2019t happen.\u00a0 and Mama WE NEED TO SEE THE BLACK CINDERELLA!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u2026but you really shouldn\u2019t worry about that\u2026\u201d I start, not quite happy that she\u2019s assumed the financial burden of the trip.\u00a0 I took on a housecleaning\u00a0 job and extra nannying in order to raise money to go to NYC.\u00a0 Her worry is equal parts encouraging that she shares this dream too and disheartening that she doesn\u2019t believe it\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n

She looked up, \u201cBut Mama it\u2019s important.\u00a0 We must see it!\u00a0\u00a0 We just have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, baby? Why is it important?\u201d I\u2019m intrigued by her passion. I don\u2019t wonder where she gets it from, I just lament for all the trouble it\u2019ll get her into.<\/p>\n

She puts her marker down and sighs as if she\u2019s full of wisdom and simple me just doesn\u2019t get it.\u00a0 Sage Trinity must enlighten her mama.\u00a0 I have a feeling this is just a foretaste of sass to come.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBecause Mama, before, black women used to be slaves but now we\u2019re princesses and I want to see.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black women used to be slaves, but now we\u2019re princesses and she just wants to see.<\/p>\n

I leaned over to kiss her forehead and whisper, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, baby.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see.\u00a0 I promise, we\u2019ll see the black Cinderella\u201d.<\/p>\n

Then I walked away out of her eye sight, leaned against the wall, and quietly cried.<\/p>\n

In one sentence my daughter revealed that no matter how much exposure to positive black role models, she as a mixed child has inherited the single story every African-American woman has\u2013 we were once slaves.\u00a0 Yes, now we have sexy and fierce Beyonce, intelligent and Ann Taylor-ed Michelle Obama, and pithy, sage Oprah,\u00a0 but somehow they\u2019re not enough.\u00a0 Somehow, these women and successes,\u00a0 do not speak to the wonder that is being a little girl who dresses up and plays dolls and reads fairy tales like they\u2019re field guides for navigating this strange, wild world.<\/p>\n

The unfortunate truth is, we\u2019ll never look back at our Fore-mothers and see Harriet Tubman or Sojouner Truth for anything other than their hard won victory over racism in America.\u00a0 Their stories have shaped ours so much so that my daughter says, \u201cblack women used to be slaves\u201d.<\/p>\n

Which is why I must save her from that single story.\u00a0 Yes, we rose out of slavery, but we\u2019re so much more. So, for my little girl who dreams in stardust, fairy tales and sweet princesses are the way to give her a counter-story.<\/p>\n

When Disney introduced the first African-American princess, I went nuts buying my daughter, then three, all things\u00a0 Tiana, all the time. I was so excited when I saw the trailer! No longer did I have to rely on the outdated effects of Whitney Houston and Brandy\u2019s primetime \u201cCinderella\u201d special to help craft a counter-story for my daughter, I had a bonafide, real-deal black princess to point to. After so much anticipation, I was disappointed with both story they chose for their only black princess and limited screen time of her as a human. For most of, \u201cPrincess and the Frog\u201d,\u00a0 Tiana is a frog and not in her beautiful brown skin.\u00a0\u00a0Tiana\u2019s storyline revolves around a saddening insinuation that her most endearing character trait is her strong work ethic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Not her great loyalty, but her great ambition.<\/p>\n

Not her deep wells of kindness, but her deep resolve to make something of herself.<\/p>\n

Not her compassion for animals or people, but her passion to have her own restaurant.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bootstraps mentality and surviving for the black woman. Watching Tiana, both human and frog versions, I asked, \u201cCould Disney have unintentionally perpetuated the dangerous single story of black woman slave made free? \u201d<\/p>\n

When Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie gave her TED talk on the \u201csingle story\u201d she shared about a houseboy named Fide who was poor and her family helped with food and work.\u00a0 She shared that the only thing her mother told her about Fide was that she should be grateful at dinner time because people like Fide have nothing.\u00a0 When Chimamanda visited Fide\u2019s home she saw a lovely bowl his brother made and something did not compute in her mind; how could this person who she should pity create such beauty? How is there capacity for such poverty of circumstance and richness of creativity in the same person?\u00a0\u00a0 She identified a problem:\u00a0 She was believing a single story about Fide, his family, his village, and all the people in her social class.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why when my daughter transitioned her affection from Tiana to Merida, I didn\u2019t flinch. If I\u2019m honest, I was glad for the distraction. For all it\u2019s problems, Cinderella is a story of hope, redemption, and kindness rewarded.<\/p>\n

My hope when we go to see Keke Palmer as Cinderella that in some way, she\u2019ll see for herself that dreams do come true for the black heroine and not just because she\u2019s earned it. My hope when we sit in the audience and see the first Black Cinderella on Broadway that she\u2019ll see with her very own eyes that magic glistens just as stunningly on brown skin as it does white.<\/p>\n

It starts with giving our girls a princess who looks just like them; It starts with giving them a subversive, counter-story, like a Black Cinderella and her black fairy Godmother on the greatest stage their has ever been.<\/p>\n

I want her to hear Sherri Shepard sing to KeKe Palmer, that \u201cIt\u2019s Possible\u201d that she \u201ccan change it all and make it all happen\u201d.\u00a0 I want to have a happily ever after moment for my mixed daughter learning to live confidently in her creamy caramel skin.<\/p>\n

That letter she wrote to Ellen for help is still in my purse. Some days I think I should mail it and embrace the impossible, other days my pride gets the best of me and tells me to find one more house cleaning job to ease the stress of paying for our trip. My dreams will come if I work hard enough and dreams are for the lazy.<\/p>\n

And then I realize,\u00a0I\u2019m<\/em>\u00a0still believing the dangerous single story.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my purse right now is a letter from my seven year old daughter to Ellen.\u00a0 Her letter is written on unlined computer paper in four different marker colors with sentences all topsy-turvy crooked. The words are smushed together at the edges of the page where she ran out of room \u00a0and it\u2019s signed in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3037,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,420],"tags":[448],"class_list":["post-3490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-race","tag-deeper-story"],"yoast_head":"\nSaving My Daughter From the Single Story<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In my purse right now is a letter from my seven year old daughter to Ellen.\u00a0 Her letter is written on unlined computer paper in four different marker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shalominthecity\/2015\/11\/saving-my-daughter-from-the-single-story\/\" 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