[Applause]
alena the poet who spoke a few moments
ago and I thought you guys don’t need me
to do anything I could just give Elaine
a little bit more time she was riffing
on things I’ll be riffing on the
distinction is I’m a fifty year old
woman and she’s a high school student
here and I’m so impressed with how far
lean it is on her journey so here’s to
you Elena my ivory recently written a
book called real American about my
journey to locate a South I could love
I’m black and biracial and over the
course of my childhood young adulthood
America taught me alone with myself and
this is a book that chronicles my effort
to identify that and allow myself
ultimately regardless I hope there’ll be
something in it for each of you when I
was three or four I lived in New York
and the end a sense at that tender age
that something might be wrong with
people with dark skin
daddy was six foot two and leave with a
neat tightly coiled afro he kept supple
with afro Sheen and skin that was dark
and crinkly like the top layer of a
brownie on those occasional weekend days
when he wasn’t traveling or busy of the
desk in his den he’d take me with him on
an errand into town and every now and
then to an event for men happen holding
his hand walking down the local street
or a bustling city sidewalk
I noticed that some stranger’s stared at
daddy
with my is that steamed like a cauldron
as if they could ran to him like an
animal if he dared to look them in the
eye I look up at my told daddy for
reassurance pleading with my eyes to
know what was going on but he gripped my
hand tighter kept his eyes focused
straight ahead pursed his lips and kept
walking when I walked down the same
streets with my white mother
nobody steamed at her that way the
lengths as she got as a white woman
called
a tiny hand of a small grandchild were
far more so it took a lot longer for me
to discern and label those Lucas’s pity
and disdain by choosing to marry my
father she crossed a line by choosing to
have me we moved to the DC area
when I began fifth grade in fifth grade
at Lincoln Elementary School one of my
white friends got pulled into the gifted
and talented group
she was smart but not smarter than I was
I knew now she was getting to do cool
projects and puzzles but not me I
wouldn’t Allman mentioned it to my mom
who came to meet with my teacher mr.
Polansky a few days later but Polanski
was not persuaded so my mom escalated to
the principal this time insisting that I
be tested they brought in someone from
the district to give me an IQ test male
the results to our house mom thought I
wasn’t watching when she opened the
envelope read the results and squirrel
the letter away in a drawer I was put in
the gifted group soon after and shortly
after that mr. Polansky announced to our
entire fifth grade class
apparently all it takes to be gifted is
for your parents meet with the principal
but in the privacy of an afternoon home
alone I peeked at the letter from the
district the raw score was 99th
percentile as my teacher stood smug in
the front of our fifth grade classroom
it was the first time in my young life I
we moved to Wisconsin for me to start
high school I’m now a tall white high
school 1,200 kids almost literally
all-white to Jewish families and us the
summer after sophomore year I’m on a
language exchange trip to France with a
different school I stayed behind our
language lesson one day to ask the
professor a question and then found
myself walking back to our Paris youth
hostel alone I came upon a small park
where a little white girl of no more
than 10 was kicking gravel out of her
shoes as I neared she stopped what she
was doing looked up at me and spoke but
why to the mob she asked me it means why
are you black decades later I would read
the work of France Fennell who had also
had a humiliating encounter with a
little white French girl but on that day
as a 15 year old walking through Paris I
was alone with just my rudimentary
French and my fragile sense of self but
why did you lie she demanded Posca Julia
Schultz because I am lucky I told her I
didn’t believe it but I wanted to
I hope my words would send this little
stranger home with some big questions I
didn’t want to make excuses or give this
little girl a lesson in topology I
wanted to shine
I wanted to shine so I think much of
that little white French girl would aim
[Music]
at the start of my senior year I’m now
serving my school as president of the
student council and I’m vice president
of the senior class of my class for the
third year in a row I turned 17 that
November and something about turning 17
made me want to look like the woman I
was becoming getting ready for school my
birthday morning I pulled the curling
iron through my hair over and over and
over again smoothing it into a nice
sleek low ponytail that would hang from
the nape of my neck I’d spent a few
extra moments on my makeup carefully
drawing the charcoal eyeliner across my
lids swishing the black mascara on my
lashes contouring my cheeks with
chestnut blush and painting my lips
raisin I selected a beautiful black wool
dress to wear a professional cut with
long sleeves around neck and the
shoulder pads that were the fashion at
the time I pulled 9 months over my
strong calves and thighs and to finish
the look I wore a pair of a black patent
leather pumps that made me 3 inches
taller decades later I would read a
short story that described a middle-aged
woman as quote no longer ravening but
not yet deteriorating back at my house
on that November morning of my 17th
birthday
I was ripening beautifully and I knew it
I entered the school and headed left
toward my locker which was located in
the bank reserved for seniors in the
central hallway near the administration
conveniently close to everything even
above the din of student voices and
slamming lockers I could hear my heels
clicking with precision on the shiny
cement floor I could already see waiting
down the hallway in front of me the
birthday sign
best friend Diana had made me with its
five sheets of white paper tape one to
the next to the next to the next to the
next in a sort of vertical column with
shimmering silver ribbons taped to the
top and sides spiraling out to the hall
I felt a surge of anticipation of the
attention I was going to get that day a
friend shouted happy birthday as I made
my way down the hall and I nodded smiled
and shouted thanks when I got to my
locker I stood and admired Diana’s
creativity reading from top to bottom
all the bits of language and imagery she
cut she’d gone to such trouble to cut
out of magazines and glue on there for
me I open the locker put my backpack
inside pull down the books I needed for
my first two classes then I turned and
smiled at someone else saying happy
birthday clang the locker door shut and
twisted the combination lock a few times
I strode down the main corridor toward
my first class feeling like I owned the
place
some unknown minutes later someone took
a thick black marker and wrote n I GE
are in three places on my birthday sign
even spelled incorrectly I knew what
they meant I spotted it in late morning
during the passing time between classes
and immediately my mouth went dry I
stood with my back against my locker
affecting casual as the other kids
opened and shut their lockers after an
excruciatingly long three minutes of
metal scraping on metal and the roar of
chatter and movement a few more happy
birthdays the hull began to empty as
kids went off to their next class the
bell rang I walked quickly toward the
school office which sat at the
crossroads of this hallway the other
main hall the hall a cramped up just
the intersection and at the top of that
I paused my chest heaving my mouth still
dry the glass walled office was around
the corner to the right I had to get my
shit together I took a deep breath and
drew my spine up straight smooth my
ponytail
straightened my dress plastered my most
pleasing smile on my face and strode
with casual confidence over to the glass
door of the main office and flung it
wide open as president of a student
council I knew all the secretaries
Murray sat at the main desk and didn’t
bat an eyelash over why I wasn’t in
class I asked her if I could borrow a
black magic marker she fished around in
her drawer will this do I took the
marker from her with a smile thanked her
pushed the door open and walked out of
the office at the intersection I scanned
all directions then turned left and
walked quickly back to my locker when I
reached it I looked down a long hallway
once more to make sure no one was coming
and then as the silence pressed down
around me I took the cap off the marker
and began to draw neat black lines over
each iteration of the word I now had
three black boxes where the words had
been I turned around and press my back
into my locker still clutching the
marker my knees sinking a little bit
toward the floor at day’s end I took the
sign home and in the privacy of my
bedroom I told my senior year scrapbook
from the bookshelf above my desk and
hope with it to the first blank page and
there I pasted my birthday sign
accordion style so that it could be
completely unfolded to resemble what a
head looked like hanging on my locker
before closing the scrapbook I took a
pair of scissors and like a surgeon neck
sizing tumors removed the three
iterations of the shameful word then
threw them in the trash I closed the
scrapbook and returned it to the shelf
containing the recorded history of my
childhood over the winter holidays I
typed my college applications in April I
accepted an offer of admission
or university a classmate Harrison
applied to Stanford but had not gotten
in Harris and I were a precalculus
together the highest math class our
school offered and it was held during
the seventh and final period of the day
one day in April right after the bell
rang signalling the end of class the end
of school Harris’s father walked in to
our men of class sat down at an empty
desk next to mine and began talking to
me in a kind of playful way so you got
into Stanford I looked up at my friend
Harrison silently asked why is your dad
here then I replied yes so what were
your SAT scores I responded do you think
it’s fair that you got into Stanford /
Harris when his scores were higher than
that
Harris was not the president of the
student council our grades were roughly
the same but I had stolen his spot at
Stanford with my blackness I told no one
about my birthday Simon and I go on to
tell no one
for decades not my parents not the
school than my best friend I got a
message loud and clear
I was the n-word of my town and I was
ashamed so now I am a freshman at
Stanford and I do very badly my first
quarter I get a 2.0 at BSC and a deep
and as the evidence comes that I’m not
doing well in these classes I start to
believe what Harris’s father had
intimated that I didn’t have the
intellectual capacity to really thrive
in a place like Stanford It was as if
his sense of that made me start to
believe the stereotypes that they’d
admit me because I was black or maybe
black and female or maybe black female
from the middle of nowhere Wisconsin and
I didn’t actually have what it would
take to survive 45 I went to the
Advising Office for help ironically this
is an office I would manage to neck
later as the Dean of freshmen at
Stanford but then I was a freshman and
the advisors there told me you have what
it takes intellectually but you need
better time management and start taking
some classes you love because when you
study what you love you thrive so I’m
taking the civil rights class later that
spring my professor asks a very tough
question in the Civil Rights class and I
ache to respond but until that point I’d
never raised my hand in the class at
Stanford and I still don’t dare to do so
my fear of being wrong of being black
and Rome
silences me even though I know I have
something important to say
scanning the viewed room for potential
volunteers our professor glances at me
and something in my face must be showing
him my brain is working overtime he nods
once at me raises his eyebrows signaling
that I should speak up
well I begin clearing my throat playing
with my hair and then I keep on talking
our professor never wanted to downplay a
dramatic moment folds his arms across
his chest leans back on one heel and
begins nodding vigorously in my
direction
so I keep talking my classmates watching
the clear evidence from our professor
that I’m saying good stuff
my classmates begin scribbling down what
I am saying I am teaching my classmates
I’m speaking from a place grounded in
knowledge and boasted bolstered by the
tiny bit of confidence my professor is
giving me with a voice pushing through
the brambles out into the clearing this
is the starting line of my efforts to
try to be better than whites expect a
black person can be a race I will run
and try to win for the next twenty years
struck twenty years late I’m now in my
late thirties maybe early 40s I had
graduated from college I had gone to law
school a practice corporate law hell
appearance
Valley have become a Dean at Stanford
and a coach has been hired to work with
me around some of my tissues in the
workplace like why I seem to need to so
badly be right all the time why I’m too
passionate times too angry at other
times over time with this coach I
realize that I am constantly in fear of
being dismissed doubted or completely
unseen because of my blackness and I am
desperate to prove constantly that they
are wrong that I am worthy a day comes
after working with this coach for a year
when I admit to her that racism had even
gotten to me that as a child and young
adult I had hated being black been
afraid of black people and just tried to
be what white people wanted and as I
said this to her these shameful truths
as they came up out of my mouth they
began the group if they had had up he
began to lessen it was a sense of relief
that I felt it was as if I could fling
this racism that had made me loathe
myself and my people off of me just by
admitting that it once inhabited me I
came to work the next day on the
Stanford campus and it was as if every
black person every black colleague every
black students had gotten a memo saying
smile at Julie today but of course they
handed on the memo I was finally able to
see myself so I could finally see them
laters and colleagues would say to me
that they’ve been waiting for me all
along my message to you today is don’t
let someone else’s racism or bigotry
make you feel less worthy love yourself
be proud of loving yourself if they
don’t love you that’s their problem I
hope you learned longer before I do that
you are magnificent in your blackness in
your brownness in your other Ness
whatever it is they who hate they’re the
ones that have work to do
you are magnificent you belong here to
yourself to this community to America thank you