The Curb

I’m sick of shifting.

I’m sick of dancing to and fro, slithering between Afro and “mainstream” mentalities

Sliding on the attire of appropriateness.

At home in my robe of Blackness in Black spaces, and wearing the cloak of conventionalism in white spaces.

The camouflage is too tight for me. It chokes me at the neckline.

I. Can’t. Breathe.

But I’ve assimilated, though! I’ve standardized myself, conformed myself. I’ve whittled myself down to become non-threatening in non-Black spaces! I have attained! I have arrived?

But what have I attained?

I have attained doctorates and education upon education.

Yet I am Still. Not. Accepted.

By reason of the color of my skin, I too can die daily.

Through circumstantial combination of place and police officer

Gawking, staring, glaring me down, positioning me on the curb, down low

Lower to the ground than the posture of prayer

Making me bow and kneel… and then kneeling on me

Knee on my essence, suppressing, squeezing

Until I remember the love of my mom’s embrace long gone

Until my breath stops.

I have been on that curb. I have been interrogated, humiliated, embarrassed.

I have been pulled to that curb by police officers, unsettled and restless

I have been humiliated by cops.  “Did you hide it in your coochie?”

As if he desired to dig in sacred spaces, to reach and grab from my essence.

Always abiding by society’s edicts, structures, standards.

Yet coochie threatened on a curb on a dark secluded street.

I have been brought down low to curb at school, teased by white peers

While studying doctoral things, lofty ideas, high notions, astute ideas

Asked in a mixed company “Do you know Homey the Clown?”

While presenting at a conference with white colleagues,

Peach-faced hotel patron asks me “Take my bags to my car”

In the midst of proper introductions, I am “Dr.”, earned from UCLA

Having my hair touched without permission by white, wrinkled hands.

While teaching with purpose, heart, focus, fervor

Frivolous faculty evals downgrade me to “knowing nothing” by biased beings.

I have been on that curb. I keep being brought back to that curb. Despite the shifting.

I’m sick of shifting.

Submitted by Dr Jennifer Shepard Payne

Jennifer Shepard Payne, PhD, LCSW is an Associate Professor at Azusa Pacific University in the School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences (Los Angeles County, California). She received her doctorate from the UCLA School of Public Affairs and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with many years of experience in mental health clinical practice and administration. She is also the Founder of DTG Counseling and Consulting, a private practice where she provides ACT-based therapy and social services to ministers and church-based laity (www.dtgcounseling.com). She is the Principal Investigator of the Urban Pastor's Project and the Clergy Depressive Counseling Survey, two studies that obtained data from pastors about their beliefs and treatment practices surrounding depression and mental health. Her research interests include developing culturally tailored community-based depression and trauma interventions and addressing minority mental health disparities.