The Talk

Two Black girls in America. One had “The Talk” one didn’t. Navigating the labyrinth that is anti-blackness.

Before we continue, you know what The Talk is, don’t you? You might not, and that’s okay. Google will help here. But also, the TV show Blackish had an episode all in The Talk that is very helpful. Come back and continue reading after you’ve acquainted yourself. Promise, it’s worth the effort.

How did I get to thinking about The Talk today you may ask? On my flight to Palm Springs for my second COVID vaccine, I was watching a random movie (Waves is the movie if you care to look it up, I’m only 37 minutes into it so I don’t have a review of it or anything) where the Black father is having a truncated version of The Talk with his son. It wasn’t the full Talk to see; it was just a quick reminder thrown into general life lessons he was teaching his kid on the importance of hard work. But, as a Black man, raising a Black man in America, he can’t just talk about hard work without the following thrown in and stressed

“The world don’t give a shit about you or me. They do not afford us the luxury of being average. Gotta work ten times as hard just to get anywhere.”

When I heard him say that, it felt like a punch in the gut and I had to pause the movie to write some thought. Not because I’m not familiar with The Talk or haven’t heard it talked about often in my partner’s family. But because, in that moment, I could see the privilege I had growing up not having The Talk giving to me. Not because my mom was the kinda parent who’s like, nah, I will not mention that to them because I want them to grow up unaware of racism. But because there was never any need to get The Talk as a kid growing up in Ghana.

Sure, there’s colorism and tribalism and a host of other issues in Ghana. But racism was not one of them. My mom still expected me to take first place in my class by working the hardest because according to her,

“those who always get first place, do they have two heads? Okay then, why can’t you be the person in first place Chinweokwu (my traditional name)”

So, I faced pressure that comes from being raised by an African parent with high expectations. But, here’s the thing, every kid in my class was probably getting the same tongue lashing from their parent as I was. So, we were on an equal playing field with the same pressures. In America, though, only the Black kids are getting the talk.

For instance, I find it hard to believe that any of you who are white, reading this, tell your kid that the world doesn’t give a shit about them, that they’re not afforded the luxury of being average, that they have to work ten times as hard to get anywhere based on the COLOR OF THEIR SKIN alone. Take a moment and think about that. Seriously, take it in. That this is a talk many Black parents feel like they have to have with their Black kids on a weekly, sometimes daily basis.

Not every Black parent in America has The Talk with their kid. And you can find many articles online as to the reason they choose not to. One of which is, the kid is going to face racism no matter what, why inundate them with it at home too? Why not them maintain their innocence? Some even say, when you have The Talk with Black kids, they’re more apt to see anti-Black racism where none exists (major eye roll at this).

Ultimately, for many parents with Black kids, there isn’t a choice but to let them know the reality of life in the country they live in. The undeniable truth that the very foundations of the country are anti-Black. And that, if they don’t have the talk with their kids, how will they make it in this world? When, just by their name, they’re discriminated against.

It got me thinking though of how my partner moves through an anti-Black society vs. how I move through it. Sure, we have fundamental personality differences that account for how differently we move. But, it got me thinking of how not having The Talk (because there was no need for it) vs having it influences how differently we view rest, working hard, achieving goals, making money, showing vulnerability, maintaining a protective shell (in order to survive a system intent on killing you). How differently we react when the police pull us over and the list goes on and on.

Ultimately, my thought process (and writing) ended with me having more questions than answers. How will we raise Black kids in this society? Will we have The Talk with them? Is “making it” in with a white supremacist world the goal? Considering that white supremacy is truly worldwide, the question then is, is “making it” the goal. Especially if making it means us just not being able to BE. When that means working ten times as hard. When that means grinding harder than our white counterparts in order to achieve a modicum of the success they have. Is there a way to achieve balance? Can we convey they might work the hardest and the white world they’re surrounded by may still not recognize their greatness come what may? So then, they shouldn’t use that a benchmark on how hard or not they work? How do we teach them to understand and accept their inherent worth and that it’s not their problem if the racist world they’re born into and inhabit doesn’t recognize it?

On the other side of the coin, what are the roles of white people/parents? How can you dismantle the system by just naming these things in front of your kids and other white people? Having these discussions with them instead of just online. I believe that most of the work we’re doing today is for the next generation. Laying the groundwork for a more fair future. Killing this cancer that is white supremacy once and for all. A cancer that has ravaged the entire world and keeps in going. A cancer that is resistant to most treatments because it holds on to power, money, success, superiority with a death grip. It’s a cancer that affects us all. Not just Black people or other POC but also white people. Perhaps mostly white people with its ability to strip them of their humanity.

How can you, as a white person, tangibly harness your power to eradicate white supremacy and eradicate the need for any parent to a Black kid to ever have The Talk with their kid?

If you’re Black, yes or no to The Talk? Or grey areas?

Xo, Christabel.

In a world of social media with a proliferation of voices, does my voice matter? This is a question I ask myself a LOT. So much so that I’m certain it must tire my partner that I’m constantly pulling her into the discussions about it. One reason I’m doubtful of the importance of my voice is because I never want to cause any harm by my words or messaging intentionally or inadvertently. People present many things on Instagram as undeniable facts. Captions and text blocks would have you believe personal experiences universally apply. These things while often benign aren’t always so. My experience with the holistic psychologist brand last summer was a splendid example of how much harm some accounts can cause. Her graphics felt like they resonated. Sure, I knew how to take what resonated and leave the rest. For some people, this wasn’t the case. There are stories of people who got off their medication based on her posts and the ideologies she taught, and this has turned out not to be the right decision for them. Not only that, it has caused them harm.

This leaves me cautious about the need for me to add my voice to the mix. I often think that perhaps what people need isn’t another voice to hear from, but to see that their inner voice is all they ever need. I’m not prescriptive and I don’t have the answers to your problems. Shit, I don’t have the answers to MY problems.

So, those are the things I don’t know and things I’m not sure of. Let’s get to the things that I know. I know that while it sounds good, and it’s probably true that our inner voice is all we ever need, this inner voice isn’t always accessible to us on our own. It is often through the words and the writings of other people that we’re able to gain a deeper understanding into who we are. It is in their bravery to speak up and share about their life experiences and the lessons they’ve learned in life that we all benefit. When I think of my favorite writer, Maya Angelou, I can’t explain how her writings and life stories continue to be an immense inspiration to my life. Her life wasn’t perfect, and she never sought to make it seem like it was. She also wasn’t prescriptive, she just spoke from her life experience and what proved to be true for her. Dr. Angelou had a deep longing to share insight from a place of not perfection but from a place of a desire to uplift Black folks.

This is a longing I know too well. I wake up each day with a deep yearning to speak and write about my life experiences. Not from a place of knowing it all or even knowing anything at all, but from a place of maybe if I share, someone somewhere will not feel alone in THEIR experiences. Writing about my love and my struggles isn’t all fun and games. My story is rife with a lot of pain and heartache, but in the pain is where I’ve found the lessons. In it is where I’ve formed my most cherished friendships and connections. It’s in that authenticity that I’m able to connect with others in my life. I want to continue writing and sharing. I want to have a record of a life well lived, a life well experienced, a life full of joys and sadnesses that are unique to me but universal in its lessons.

Maybe that’s my gift, huh? This ability to share. To connect our human experiences. To find the shared connections and the collective lessons. I doubt this gift of mine a lot and when I see other people who appear confident in their gifts, I’m sometimes inspired but more often scared that if im not that way, then maybe I have nothing to offer after all. Here’s the thing, I could keep holding back from giving it all my all while waiting to get confident or I can just share about this too. The struggle to believe I have a voice, the struggle to find that voice, and the self doubt that plagues me about whether there’s any benefit in me sharing that voice. That struggle isn’t just by the way, nor is it something I have to overcome first before I’m able to share about my experiences. It is all a part of my experience, this is the work. In my sharing this fear, doubt, and struggles and many others to come, I hope that you not feel alone in your fears, doubts and struggles.

I’ve had many relationships over the years all with trials but none has been as impactful as my current one with my partner and that with my mom over our lifetime. I believe that our relationships can be outstanding teachers if we are in the right space to be a student. Otherwise, it becomes about blame game. Focusing on the other person’s shortcomings or how they’re toxic or and anything else that is not how we can learn about ourselves from that relationship.

Disclaimer *this is not talking about truly abusive relationships*

It feels like taboo to talk about thing like your relationship is hard but you both remain intentional about remaining in it but that’s why I think we should. There were so many things that have happened throughout our relationship that many people (and us) would say we probably should have broken up in our first year.

I had a lot of anger from a life filled with painful moments. I had grown up a specific way where we yelled, screamed, hit people, thrown things etc. I was always ready to rumble if I felt hurt. Ginele also came into the relationship with her unique set of conditioning. So yeah, it was tumultuous. When I met Ginele, I had just had a pretty nasty divorce a few months prior after 4 years of a pretty abusive relationship. Of course I loved Ginele, but I had conditioning that I hadn’t worked on. My favorite thing to say was I am who I am and if you don’t like it, oh well. While secretly, I felt ashamed of the ways I acted out. But after a year of utter chaos, the love I had for her and the love she had for me motivated me for the first time to see if I can change the way I expressed my emotions. Five years later, here I am, grown and healed in so many ways. And six years into our relationship, the lessons keep coming.

While there are things I desperately wish I could change in our history, I can honestly say that she has been the truest reflection of myself that I’ve ever had. It’s so hard to see yourself. It’s much easier to see someone else and tell them what they need to work on. Shifting from that to just seeing yourself, sitting with that revelation, accepting it, and looking for ways to gain new skills to help you navigate life and your relationships with more ease is life-changing work. Our culture has taught us to throw in the towel early. If it’s hard in a certain manner, or for a prolonged period, or in a recurrent way, it’s not meant to be. And while I’m sure the sentiment that love should be easy resonates with and is true for some people, it’s never resonated with me. I don’t know of any uncomplicated relationships. I’ve never seen that, and so I don’t relate. What I know though and have witnessed in my life is the magic that comes from using love as a catalyst to learn, evolve, grow and repair relationships that matter to us.

By Instagram standards, I should have disavowed my mom so long ago. We have a very difficult history filled with abuse and it was the worst relationship in my life for a really long time. But when I started therapy and just talking about and processing everything that I went through in her hands, I learned compassion for her and by extension for self. She did the best with the knowledge she had. She saw certain treatments that were incredibly harmful to me as normal. So, when I learned the skills of telling her how what she did affected me, the skills of setting boundaries with her, and her (unspoken) determination to do the work, our relationship changed for the better. And it’s still evolving to this day. I’m so glad I stuck it out with her. And that’s kinda how I feel about Ginele and I. It’s been so hard. We have traumatic memories that I’d rather not have. We’ve married, there’s been infidelities, we’ve divorced, there are trust issues, there’s still a fairly regular conversation about if we’ll make it. If perhaps the hurt is too much to overcome.

So, we work, we go to therapy, we fight, we cry, we threaten to leave weekly because it feels just so hard sometimes. But above all, we love. At least we try to. Our love is divine. We both truly feel that way. Our therapists marvel at what we have. Our mothers marvel at what we have. That love is worth fighting for. Even if we have spent most of it unhooking from and unlearning our respective conditioning. Literally just last week, she called me out on my tendency to use tears and my pain as an emotionally manipulate weapon. At first, I wanted to defend myself and talk about how that’s so not true. But I examined myself and came to the open acceptance that I do that. It was such a relief when I finally admitted it and let go of the shame that came from it. And so now I can begin the work of learning new skills and techniques to counteract that conditioning. Anyhow, this is a much bigger conversation that I can’t wait to have going forward with Ginele as my guest.

When I first discovered that I had a voice, I wasn’t sure how to use it. I wasn’t sure of what avenue best suited the use of said voice. What I knew is that in my personal life, through conversations I have had with friends and family, I have an impact. The most profound impact I have from what I’ve been told is that I show others how to just be by being (I know because I asked). But gaining that voice first began in one-on-one therapy.

I’ve had the same therapist for the last 5 years. We talk about the same things repeatedly, but with new insights and perspective each time. He has seen me through the initial stages of leaving a lifelong religion, supported me when I came out and lost 99% of the people I loved. He has witnessed me navigate intense anger and self sabotage. He’s seen me navigate my first same sex relationship where I displayed hetero-normative expectations and therefore disappointments. He’s seen me perhaps get married when I shouldn’t have (he’s also thought me that taking should out of my vocabulary is a great strategy), he’s supported me through my divorce from that marriage because of multiple infidelities by my then wife and the eventual decision to get back together with her. If I were to guess based on his 25 odd years of being a therapist, he probably knew that the marriage would not work, he probably knew that I would file for divorce, he probably knew that that experience would be my biggest teacher, he probably also knew that my love for my partner would send me back into her arms. Yet, through it all, he maintained what I can only characterize as unbelievable restraint.

Restraint from offering me advice. Restraint from imposing his thoughts on me. He made sure I lived organically by living, experiencing, learning, and therefore growing. One could say that perhaps he should have helped me avoid the pitfalls of the heartache that was a constant companion to me during the last five years. But I beg to differ. As someone who experienced the pain, I beg to differ. The pain taught me more than his advice would ever have. Feeling gut wrenching, heart breaking pain has integrated the lessons into my DNA, into my very cells. I know what it is to have felt pain that was indescribable. Pain that feels as though your very gut is being ripped into shreds, the inability to speak, the increased heart rate, the shallow breathing, losing appetite followed by the gorging on food. If he had protected me from that, where would I be today?

So, if a therapist is so hesitant to give advice, why are there so many people on Ig, therapists included, who are quick to supply us with an endless list of should and should nots. And even when they’re not should and should nots, there is definitely a litany of advice givers on IG. I remember when I would take things I had seen on IG to my therapist, he would always say… well, it depends. Examples are “You have to love yourself before others can love you”… well, it depends on YOUR particular life experiences. Well, how about “you have to cut toxic people out of your life”… well, it depends, are you running away from triggers that could help you grow? So, he taught me that every single advice depends on your particular life experiences and that to know if advice applies to you, understand who you are. Otherwise, you’ll run from one advice to other, most of which are often contradictory unable to know if the problem is the advice or you. As a rule of thumb, I do not consume info and advice from therapists on IG. I get that there’s a vast market for it. Because of how difficult the human experience is, people are desperate for solutions. The self help market is a big and lucrative one. In fact, when I was still in church, they’ll always mock people seeking self help advice as lost sheep. I don’t consider anyone lost sheep, but I am determined not to contribute to the culture of offering people who I don’t know their life experiences advice on anything.

So then, as a creative, empathetic person who has had a positive impact in the lives of people in my life, what is my strategy for continuing to have a positive impact in the life of many more? JUST BEING! That hasn’t always been my strategy, though. In 2018, I had hired a business coach to help me figure out how to be an impactful human while on this earth and also make a living from it. I’ve been a nurse for the last 8 years and I love nursing and the impact I have on the lives of people, but over the years, I’ve felt less impactful. The medical system and the lack of autonomy that I have in the care of my patients made me want more. How can I make a living doing what I love, which is having a meaningful impact in the lives of others while also making a living from it because I don’t believe I have to be a pauper to be a good person? That’s where the business coach came in with all the strategies she has learned over her decade of social media marketing. Some of those strategies were: 1. Identify 3 quirky habits you have and weave them into every story so that people will come to relate to you by those three things. 2. DOn’t just post about your days on your stories, have a point to it. A lesson to teach, a thing to point out… story with a purpose. 3. Give people a bunch of free material so you can one day sell to them etc.

And I tried it for a little. I created free pdf’s building mailing lists that I’ll one day get to monetize off of. Build trust in your audience so that one day, you can sell to them and they wouldn’t see it coming. YOOOO…. that caused me so much anxiety because that is so who I’m not. But I thought, oh maybe it’s because I’m not as skilled a marketer as they are. I had paid hundreds of dollars for this coaching after I had followed them for a few years. So, yes, they got me as a client… hence their methods works. But you know what, over the last few years, I see those marketing strategies for what they are… white supremacist, capitalistic, predatory marketing strategies. I’m not saying don’t build a business on social media, but my question is why does it have to be couched in subterfuge? Why can’t you just come up with a brilliant business strategy that isn’t tied to you as a human who is flawed af and then market it as a business off the bat? Like hey, I’m a writer, I’m going to write a book filled with all the lessons I’ve learned from my life so far that I’m going to sell to you, buy it if you want to? While you go on being your hoeish, weed smoking, ratchet music twerking flawed af individual if that’s what you want to be. Or conversely, be your private self without having to showcase your entire life to be the relatable individual you are if that’s the case.

So, yeah, nursing is still annoying the fuck out of me based on how fucked up the healthcare system is. And I’m still a very creative impactful individual who would love to earn a living doing creative impactful things. And my strategy is just going to be to build a business that supports that that isn’t tied to who I am or how I present on here. Or maybe it is tied to it, but I’ll make sure it’s going to be exactly who tf I am and no persona curated by a social media strategist team. Yeah, you can strategize about my actual business, but never about ME as a person. Nah son, no one gets to get me to present a way that isn’t authentic in any way just to gain followers or sell some t-shirts.

Let me say though that I don’t feel this way about professionals who offer advice on their profession. It’s almost as though the self help, coaching, therapy business is the worst business to do on social media yet is the most popular. Because I believe that it is highly difficult to offer generalized advice when it comes to mental healthcare since it’s such an individualized thing. I think doing it in tandem is certainly beneficial but often times, people aren’t in therapy or doing one on one coaching. Rather, they’re consuming memes and tables and charts that offer generalized mental health advice. But also, there’s the nuanced conversation about access to therapy and alladat so I get why people gravitate towards free access to SOME mental healthcare.

Of course, I don’t know everything about everything and I’m not condemning anyone. Just had these thoughts rattling around in my head and wanted to write and talk about it.

Let’s talk,

Christabel.