Class Assignment

In a place where girls dreamed of their great white knight swooping in to save them from the perils of loserdom, lonliness, and self-confidence, I dream of someone, someone’s, somewhere different. In my battle of being black, being a woman, being someone “real” I am stuck between the worlds or my community’s expectations. I have the wonderful choices of being “some ghetto chick”, expected to flash her booty, juke, and whose self worth is worth less than her Timbs but whose inner strength and individuality is buried and silenced. I could be the uber “successful” BLACK WOMAN lawyer/ doctor whose career was life and life was measured on how you “overcame” stereotypes that weren’t made to fit anyway. And then there was the once-in-a-lifetime offer to be someone “deep”. Someone who took their experiences to mold self into a “beautiful strong young sistah” emphasis on the “tah”. I wanna be down And so with a patriarchal society’s words whispering in my ear, I set off to find “somebody”. Somebody who was the difference, the person that I wished to be.

I dreamed of a lyrical knight, no not a knight, a “brotha’”. The funny thing is he doesn’t even hafta be a brotha. Someone “down”, someone who refuses what is pushed on to him, someone who uses words, style, and sentiment to stand strong, stand proud in the face of the forces that try to detain, mutilate, and destroy. Someone who skateboards, someone who plays street soccer, or uses spoken word to release. No, all he has to be is someone who “gets it”. Who understands to some degree the pits that hold us, the files that dull us down until we forget that what made us, forget how to look beyond what is seen and heard, make us forget how to think for ourselves. At the same time he sees his light, he sees his true worth and knows that it is his expectations that matter the most. Someone who can spit, someone who can speak, whether Chinese, Spanish, Tagalong, or English. I dreamed of someone who could dance the dances. Dances that require some kind of alternate thought, skill, and touch, like the step or the bachata moderna. Hell I would’ve taken the oh-so-cool fists up and rockin back and forward step. The men who get my heart beating arent the ones who say “You had me at hello”. No, it would be “I’m really feelin you.”. bump-BUMP . Like other privileged, middle class, light-skinned, conflicted, “TRAGIC” girl-women, I fell in love with hip-hop and the ideals I created from it.