Pink

Pink…

“…feels like nervousness”- Emily Haney age 7

Feminism was not an easy sell for me as a girl. I’d say my primary interests were as follows:

barbies,

dresses,

long hair,

best friends,

flowers,

romance

and of course, cheerleading.

Bringing down the patriarchy seemed generally indelicate and specifically like it might require more body hair than I was comfortable with. I spent a tremendous amount of my tween years concerned that my cheerleading aspirations were in jeopardy if I didn’t learn how to shave before high school. Using a razor (read: weapon) seemed far outside my natural skillset. I am not “mechanically inclined”, as my mother would say, and the traditional cheer uniform leaves quite a bit of body on display to the world. This was a real blessing/curse sitch for me.  I wanted to be seen, but also, to be smooth.

I watched the high school squad lustily each Friday night from my seat in the stands, as they stood there yelling at us

yelling and dancing,

dancing and flipping

flipping and commanding,

right there in front of God and everybody.

“We say red, you say white.” they ordered

And the crowd obeyed.

And I saw all those people doing as they were told

 by these prancing, ponytailed, pretty, young girls.

I liked that.

The color pink is soft and gentle and “girly” but also bold, and fun, and hot. Pink like cheerleading is a palatable power meaning woman can indulge it without fear of retribution. I’ve always preferred a safe and sanctioned approach to most things and thus the pinkitization of my young life was nearly comprehensive. People project strength on to black bodies that may or may not be there. I sensed this from the time I was small—that I would need to remind, if not teach, people that I was a girl, as fresh and fragile as my alabaster friends. I would do so through the performance of a femininity that in my case was not particularly feigned, but that was unfortunately, required.

It was easy for me to wear sundresses, and say prayers, and play with children. It was harder for me to be quiet, and diminutive, and hungerless. But I tried.

I affected a voice much higher and whinier than my own, not all the time, but as needed.

I sucked in—as I was taught by older and “wiser” women

I chose chicken when I wanted beef.

I batted my eyelashes and made Kyser Perrymen sharpen pencils for me,

I wore my hair in two little buns. (One bun = militant. Two buns = harmless)

I learned to tell the truth,

but tell it slant.

Growing up we went to my grandmother’s house a lot. It was the kind of place—we were the type of family—who served the men first. And it didn’t matter that it was often the women who were working outside the home all day. Men were taken care of whether they were drunk, or belligerent, or violent or sluggish, or sleeping or sad. It was understood that these (mostly) black bodies had it hard, that the world was unsafe for them, that their vices were understandable given the conditions. But the women, our bodies, just as bruised and beaten, were expected to be strong— always saving the day, always soldiering on. And whether or not there was some honor or heavenly good in it, I knew I did not want to be a matriarch if it meant bearing the weight of all things and then eschewing the glory.  I wanted more important things than power when I grew up. I wanted rest. I wanted security. I wanted to be taken care of.

In college, I majored in Psychology. I remember learning about fight or flight as trauma responses. Neither seemed to capture my behavior in dangerous situations though. Certainly, I was more prone to flight but even fleeing is an act of bravery, and bravery, I can admit, is not my ministry. In graduate school I was introduced to a third trauma response—freeze. This, I could relate to. The complete psychological paralysis that I experience in moments of fear is comical when it is not life threatening.  When I was first learning to drive, more than one of my instructors said to me “it isn’t usually best to stop the vehicle on the highway”. Well then, how’s a girl supposed to gather her composure? Make a plan? Disassociate? A freeze response, I read, occurs when a body senses that it will not be able to fight or to fly successfully.

For a long time, freeze was the only fear response I related to.  But “freezing” doesn’t account for the eye-batting, and the voice affecting, and the cheerleading. Freezing, on its own isn’t quite pink enough. Recently, I learned about a fourth trauma response called “fawning”.  Fawning is an attempt to appease what or whoever is threatening in a given situation. It is a harm reduction approach seen often in individuals who have experienced abuse. To fawn is to fold into oneself, to be quiet, to smile, and giggle, and compliment as needed keep everyone happy—to be as small as the moment requires to stay safe. Even if the moment is a whole lifetime.

I don’t know of a woman or a black person who hasn’t had need of this strategy at one time or another. But like all defense mechanisms, after a while it can become the only strategy we reach for. Emily, is seven years old and this week she sent me the word “pink” to write about. According to her pink feels like “nervousness”. Smart Girl. Emily gets it.

And this isn’t a treatise against anything rosy or rouge-y. Pink is so many splendid things:

a blush that betrays that the feelings might be mutual

stargazer lilies

white baby bottoms

grapefruit flesh

strawberry lemonade

geckos and seahorses

trendy pants on secure men

that eccentric old Victorian home on the corner of main street in a small, tsk-tsk-ing town

tutus

luscious lips

healthy lungs

dawn and dusk and lightning flashes

bunny noses

swollen eyelids after a good long cry

No color is all good or all bad, of course, but I have to agree with Emily that pink is sometimes an uncomfortable color. When I was her age I thought that all little girls liked it, and I wanted to be like all the other girls. Now that I am a woman, I’ve put away childish things, and I know that I am a woman no matter how dull or dark, or loud or large I am. I am a woman even if I am not a little bit pink, even if I am black and blue from all the fighting I do to be seen and heard and held. I’ve come a long way in this regard.

And I think I’ll keep going.