Black girl loses her face.
00:07
White girl finds it outside the mosh pit,
00:11
slips it on over her straight blonde hair,
00:16
which morphs into a kinky afro
00:19
that she can now touch without having to ask permission.
00:24
White girl can finally milly rock,
00:27
can finally get in formation.
00:29
White girl has on black girl’s eyes but still don’t see color,
00:35
still can’t see racism, even if it dragged her into a ditch,
00:40
even if it shot her in the face,
00:43
even if it caught on camera.
00:45
White girl is so predictable.
00:49
Black girl loses her body.
00:52
Black man scoops it up,
00:55
gropes it, bends it over.
00:58
Black man does this while a crowd watches.
01:02
Black man does this while wearing a dashiki,
01:05
while wearing tribal face paint,
01:08
while listening to the blackest music at the blackest festival,
01:11
while waving his black power fist in the air,
01:14
the same black power fist he tried to shove down my throat.
01:18
To this day, I am afraid to tell this story in a room full of black bodies
01:23
for fear of being called a traitor to the black struggle,
01:27
for fear of being called a parasite,
01:30
a crazy black woman,
01:31
for fear of being kicked out of my own movement.
01:34
I thought this was Afropunk,
01:39
thought I was safe here,
01:42
thought I wasn’t commodity here,
01:44
thought I could trust a black man’s hands here,
01:47
thought I wouldn’t have to steal my face back
01:50
from a white woman’s entitlement here.
01:53
The lesson is you can still wear dashiki and be an ancient nigger.
01:57
The lesson is there will always be a white woman lurking in the shadows,
02:02
lusting after your body, wanting to try on your magic.
02:05
The lesson is white people are not the only ones
02:09
who have tried to kill me and hide my body.
02:12
But I’m expected to stay silent because my murderer shares my skin color.
02:17
The lesson is you can still go to Afropunk and be surrounded by antiblackness.
02:23
Black girl dies for the fifth time that day,
02:27
and bystanders mistake the twitch of her body for an African dance,
02:33
for tradition,
02:34
us black girls always dying in unexpected places,
02:38
always making an inconvenience out of our womanhood.
02:41
Everyone knows this, whether it be at a black music festival
02:45
or a R. Kelly trial.
02:46
The lesson is I went to Afropunk and was molested by a black man
02:52
in front of a crowd of people
02:54
who shared my same color of birthing,
02:58
who watched me say no,
03:00
who stared unblinking,
03:04
who wouldn’t even turn down the music.
03:08
(applause)
◊♦◊
Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
◊♦◊
Talk to you soon.
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