Confident Eyes (A Blog and a Poem)
Recently, I went to a meeting that was held at a church where lots of community and twelve-step meetings were being held. Though it wasn’t my church, I am a member of one of the regular meetings that rent a room there.
Like so many spaces I go to in Oregon, this is a place where I’ve never seen another black person but I have on occasion, seen one or two people of color.
After my meeting, I had a scheduled phone meeting with my writing coach, Jenny Forrester, who is a dear friend, published author (of several books and articles), founder and curator of Unchaste Readers — Women Reading Their Minds.
I decided to make my call from my car, also known as my mobile office.
All of the cars from the meeting I attended were gone except for mine when a white man pulled up and parked across from me.
When the man got out of his car, he glanced in my direction. I was talking to Jenny when I noticed that the man not only glanced, he was standing there for a good while, staring at me. I looked back while telling Jenny, my very woke, white friend and coach, that this old white man was staring at me. His cold and unwelcoming expression asked why was I there. My simmering fury began to boil while Jenny expressed her anger at the man (good thing she was in Colorado and on the phone ‘cause I’m pretty sure that she would have given that man a piece of her mind), while also holding space for me and apologizing for the man’s rudeness and blatant racism.
With confident eyes, I looked back at the white man, making sure that he knew that I saw him staring at me and, that I wasn’t going anywhere. That I had a right to be in that parking lot, taking up space.
He never smiled nor waved and after what must have been a good minute or more, he walked into the building. It would not have surprised me if this man had called the police.
This also happened to be during Black History Month, February 2020, adding insult to injury.
Whiteness/White Supremacy. This is the kind of shit that black folks have to deal with a hundred times a day. Every damn day.
Below is the poem that I wrote from that experience and it’s written to the cadence of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The popular children’s book written and illustrated by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle.
Confident Eyes
Black woman, fat woman,
What do you see?
I see a white man
Looking at me.
Staring, no peering
In a church parking lot,
Assuming he’s welcome,
Believing I’m not.
White man, patriarch
What do you see?
If in my direction?
Black royalty.
Although your look
A condescending gaze,
With confident eyes
I look back and wave.
Angela Braxton-Johnson
Copyright © March 2020