Ordinary Black Girl

I used to do promotions. Back around that college age when cut-off tops were still a viable wardrobe option. Back when I wore this big curly wig that gave me liiiiife. None of my white-friends understood. I was fun, bubbly and loved the $50/hr to pass out booze samples at cool places as a newbie in the city. But when I got my first steady job, I just kinda stopped.

Fast forward a few months & I travel to Liberia for Christmas. My bosses and I agree to a plan, but things changed when I returned from the trip & I decided to leave. So I’m just there in NYC with no job, still paying rent. I decide to try to get a few of those promo gigs. I sent my pic (big curly wig poppin’!) and I got a shift at this new club that was doing a soft grand opening, trying to get the vibe right. Cool, whatevs.

So I get ready, head to the place. It looks like your typical pretentious “VIP” club: fog machines steadily puff out cumulonimbus shaped bursts of vapor into a room lit up by blue and purple lights with white leather couches pushed up in corners behind glass tables topped with (plastic) drink glasses). 

Theres’s a guy with gel slicked hair who’s wearing a black suit, just cracking jokes with the bartenders and cocktail waitresses and security guards as he walks around, observing the room.

He gets to the promo girls. There’s 4 of us. I’m the only black chick.

He’s determinging who’s who based on our pictures on his phone.
But asks anyways, “where’s Fiona?”

Confused, I glance between the varying shades of blonde around me before telling him it’s me.

He pulls me to the side and is like, yeah…you look a little different than your picture....

See in Liberia, I went to get my hair braided and the lady convinced me to try “DaDa” style, which I didn’t really understand even after she explained the 6^th time so I just had to say yes at that point. Basically, this ladies dada is actually just faux locs. I hated it at first, but within 24 hours I was totally feeling these dark brown locs that were swinging down my back.

So much so that I didn’t even think to consider thus gig would care that my big curly wig had been replaced with these fierce ass locs. Fierce is fierce you know?

"Ha! Yea, I just got these a few days ago, I didn’t even think to take a new my picture...," I explained. But he wasn’t having that shit.

"Look, I didn’t hire a girl with dreads, this isn’t that kind of club."

"Ummm….What kind of club?"

"The people at this club don’t wear or like dreadlocks, so please, just go."

He pulled out a $50 bill to pay me for my time. Stunned and speechless, I stood frozen in place as he pushed the money into my hand as I felt my fist ball up. He simply walked away, beginning to fix his hair.

I looked to see who all had heard that shit, because that felt like a punch. A few people heard, but nobody said nothing.

I should have ripped that money up in his face. I didn’t. I should have called out his racism. I didn’t. I just got my things and left.  End of story.

I know there’s really nothing spectacular about that story. There was no heroic moment from me; still learning the difference between “black battles” worth fighting and those truly not worth my time.

But also, no heroic act from any of my [white] female allies. Instead silence, because that wasn’t an insult against a woman, it was just an insult against a black person.

So it ended up just a regular, average, “life as a Black chick” story. And I kind of fucking hate that.