Voices on the New Diasporas - an MIT student journal
Submission deadline for Spring 2008 issue is March 15, 2008.
Copyright Notices
The works displayed on MIT's E-merging Journal are protected by copyright and other applicable laws and are made available by MIT's E-merging Journal for use by you, the individual accessing the E-merging Journal, solely for your own educational, non-commercial, non-monetary purposes provided you credit the author(s) identified on the particular work(s) and the MIT E-merging Journal for the material you use.
These works may be viewed on-line, downloaded, copied, distributed and displayed by you for your own educational, noncommercial purposes, or the URL of a document (from this server) included in another electronic document; however, the text of a work may not be published commercially (in print or electronically), edited or otherwise altered.
This is a summary of the license terms to you, the full text of which is available - Legal Notices.
Other, Still
by Melissa Edoh, Class of 2003
You see her from a distance. She is so together – assurance in her step, confidence in her voice, strength in her laughter. You wish you could be more like her.
But – lean a little closer – look, listen a while longer: there’s more to her. Watch her carefully – pay attention. Soon, you begin to sense a certain ambiguity, a certain unease about her…
* * *
She has memories of an African life but her reality now takes shape in another world. When she goes back, she sees glimpses of herself in the women she crosses in the streets – or rather, heartbreakingly, she sees glimpses of what they could be if they stopped trying so hard to be the Other – to be what they perceive her to be, what she’s become now that she’s left… Why can’t they just love themselves…
But who is she to say that these women should love themselves when she recognizes that almost every aspect of their life is sub-standard? How does one convince them that they are perfect, that they are just the way that God intended for them to be? Can they afford to be perfect in their thoroughly imperfect environment? Perhaps self-disfiguration and veneration of all things not them are merely coping mechanisms – a desperate quest for sense in a world so messed up it has long become senseless…
Wasn’t it by coming to the other side that she became who she is now? Wasn’t it there that, at last, she had been free to remember that she was beautifully and powerfully created? That she deserves a Black man who loves her for all that she is and who is not afraid of her? That Africa had a rich past, and could have a glorious future, if only her children would get their act together? Wasn’t it there that she had remembered how to love her kinky hair and celebrate her brown skin?
It was on the other side that she had re-learned her self.
How then does she, the cousin, the primary school best friend, the neighbor’s daughter who, by some blessed set of circumstances made it out to the proverbial other side, coming in the process to the realization of all that she is, has, and deserves? How then does she – can she – tell the sisters, cousins, neighbors she left behind and comes back to visit with honey-coated r’s and glossy pictures of life on the other side to love themselves in their current environment?
Did she—before she left?
Hadn’t she also sought to be more like “the Other”? Skin a little lighter, hair a little straighter, clothes a little tighter? Hadn’t she studied the videos, practiced the accent, and mimicked the dance moves? Scorned the akoumenh and glorified the cheeseburger? She had longed to be more like Janet Jackson, Aaliyah, and Toni Braxton, Black women who had the right hair, the right clothes, the right music – their world somehow felt right in all the ways that hers seemed to fall short. So she dreamed and prayed and hoped for a piece of that world as she started down the steep and dangerous path of self-loathing.
Eventually, she left home and joined the Other’s world. She had always wanted to be more like Her; now you can hardly tell them apart. Now she too has the right hair, the right clothes, the right music.
Yet, as she sits on the bus years after fleeing her birthplace, an old voice creeps back into her mind. As scenes of her new home file past her, an ad for ultra-low rise jeans catches her attention and suddenly, her full behind feels too big… She sits, reveling in the warmth of the sun, only to be warned by another Black woman that she might become too dark… She mentions her doctoral research and her Ivy League alma mater and his interest plummets – too intelligent… She had wanted to be more like the Other; now the Other’s struggle has become hers. And now she sees that their struggles have in fact always been one: even in the Other’s world she is haunted by others’ notions of who and what she should be – other, still.
Her world back “home” had forbidden her from seeing her self. From the imperfection surrounding her, she had learned that she was imperfect, unworthy. But the Black women who captivated her in music videos and fashion magazines had seemed perfect – both they and their world. So she fled her world for theirs. In their world, for the first time, her life did not feel senseless. She soon gained confirmation of what she had suspected all along – that she was meant for something better than what she had known on her native soil. She found forgotten value and pride through the Afrocentric movement as she watched the Others longingly recall a long-lost African heritage through celebrations of Black history, culture, and beauty. Through their quest, she remembered her self, and thought she was forever rid of the unease that had plagued her for so long. But the seed of insecurity had been planted early – and the Black women who had so easily conquered her heart had said nothing of their own unease. They had said nothing of what it was to be imperfect when perfection is a possibility.
Back “home,” she had been flawed because her world was flawed. But here, on the other side, she is flawed because when you’re a Black woman, this isn’t your world. For all its “Black is beautiful” slogans, African headwraps, and defiant afros and dreadlocks, the Afrocentric movement hardly makes a dent in the barrage of messages constantly reminding you that you need to be other. Everywhere you turn, you are reminded that perfection is both desirable and attainable, but only those who look and act the part are allowed a piece of it. And inevitably, the part looks and acts nothing like the beautiful and powerful creature that you are.
The Black women on the glossy pages had said nothing – if they had, could she have heard them? – and she had run after their world with dreams of freedom, only for that old, dreaded, familiar refrain to catch up with her: you are not enough.
So she desperately rushes back “home” – where is that, anyway? – in search of validation in a world she remembers once belonging to. But now she’s a little confused, not quite sure what the women mean when they say, “You’re looking very fat.” Do they mean the same thing that women in her new “home” think but wouldn’t dare say to her face? Or are they noting the fact that she looks well-nourished in the midst of the underfed? Or do they know that she’s caught between two worlds, no longer even sure of the meaning of a simple 3-letter word, that she will take it negatively and feel hurt, and that for those few seconds, they will be on top of her, will be above her – for just those few seconds?
She has memories of an African life but her reality now extends beyond that world. When she goes back, she sees glimpses of herself in the women she crosses in the streets – but now she also sees glimpses of the Other, glimpses she hadn’t known enough to recognize before she left. As she walks down the dusty and treacherous paths of her first home, she sees herself through the eyes of the women she passes and senses the mix of admiration and hostility they harbor towards her. Girl, if you only knew…
They need each other. How does she make them see that they are fighting the same battle? That they – the women she left behind, the Other, and she – need one another, need to stand a joint front against a common adversary? Can she tell the women she passes on the forgotten streets of her youth that they are perfect and that they must love themselves when she still doesn’t know what that means? Would they believe her if she told them that – like them, like her – the distressed Other stares at her reflection in the mirror, wondering, “What is wrong with me?” That She too cries herself to sleep when all too many answers flood her mind at once? Can they afford to believe her when she tells them that she recognizes the look in their eyes because it’s the look that her own eyes meet every morning in the mirror, the look she now recognizes day after day in the Other’s perfect brown eyes, the look of defiance that is nothing but a façade…?
But maybe if she shows them what she sees, if she allows them behind her own façade, lets them in on the self-doubt, the vulnerability, the old, deep pain, maybe they will stop and look and listen, and maybe they will reach for the hand she holds out to them…
* * *
She catches you staring and quickly looks away. She knows that you might see in her eyes what she successfully hides from everyone else – that though she is now a world away from where she started, though she now looks and sounds just like you, though she walks, stands, and speaks with apparent purpose and confidence, that she still dreams of being Other.
She quickly looks away but a moment later, her eyes seek yours: today, she decides to let you in.
