2023 Short Story & Essay Contest: Second Place, High School Essay Contest
The Black body, from the moment it is conceived, bears the burden of prejudice and stereotypes. And so as it grows, it must choose to either be a rebuttal of these prejudices or be a corroboration, another hushed statistic for their community to lay to rest. I have chosen a rebuttal, in my extreme dedication to academia and my feminine expression I have refuted the claims of my body and squashed them beneath me. Yet these prejudices will never disappear, for those who fashion themselves into rebuttals, they remain ever-present pressures for exceptionalism and draft Rebuttals into a war against the Corroborations.
I have understood that my status as a Rebuttal has placed an onus on my juvenile hands—I must refute society’s every prejudice. My perception is therefore carefully crafted and measured into the stoic academic: one who is careful to speak with a wide vocabulary, one who takes care to research before speaking. I also take care to tame my hair into palatable braids or fine locks and think twice before making first impressions with my hair in cornrows. I raise my voice and repeat myself time and time to be heard in a sea of white bodies when discussing my contentions on the debate team, otherwise it would be deaf to my white teammates. And like so many other Black women, robbed of any sense of femininity from the minute of their birth, I layer myself in dresses and propagate my feminine nature. In this lies my encumbrance, the perceptions that I wake to battle: preconceived notions that preceded my conception. These measures taken are to combat the slew of media portrayals that point to my criminality, my inherent intellectual inferiority and my masculinization. I become vigilant, calculated with the weight of society’s pressures, and take action to surmount them.
But this surmounting is not a complete triumph, as I do so I become a warrior against bodies like my own. I am neatly separated from the Corroborations and made “other,” an alien entity of wonder. I am now evidence to silence the cries of those who could not refute society’s claims. I am a muting device for the complaints of those who had no resources to surmount these refutations. I know that my name will find its place on the lips of some “enlightened” white person who asserts the falsehood that “all Black people are…”. And if I succeed enough, I am beaten into the coffin my Blackness should have bestowed on me. With sneers, I am asked if I listen to “Lil” this and “Lil” that, blunt fabrications of artist names. Then I am forced to assert my intelligence, and tell people how many debate competitions I have won and what my record is like.
The Black body has two choices: to aspire to be a rebuttal of the White man’s predetermined tales or a corroboration. However, the Black body cannot write its tales on a blank slate of its own. It may add or replace.
