I realized this in the 1980s and '90s when, because of my career choices, I was usually the only woman and only black around. I'd say nothing as my office mates, the men I partied with and who backed me to the hilt professionally, would grouse about the lack of women. I was smarter and better-looking than they were. I was, to take a page from my plain-spoken Vince, hot. I wore uncomfortably tight clothing. Makeup and sheer pantyhose. Nail polish. Jane Fonda for daaaaays. My heels were so legendary, my nickname was Spike. Oh, Debra dressed shamefully in the summertime. But to most white men, to the men who occupied the world that my life choices drew me to, I was invisible. When I finally married at 40, it was to the first man who'd asked me out in five years. I had been holding out for a brother but, realizing that was even less likely to happen, finally let that go.
Even when I was a seven-months-pregnant behemoth, I was invisible as I hefted a load of packages to the post office at Christmastime, as I struggled with a pallet of sodas at Costco. I was even invisible in the Tiny Tim confines of the modern airplane. I could hear crickets as I struggled to get my bag into the overhead. Two seats away, an elderly white lady was swarmed by white men helping her with hers. They politely excused themselves as they tried to hurry past my bulk to her. It was all I could do not to cry. I did cry the time two white men "erased" me in a shoebox-size Dunkin Donuts in Logan Airport. One had filled the tiny room with his luggage, his restless kids and a complicated order. I waited politely in line behind him. As he was trying to get organized, he noticed the white man in line behind me and apologized profusely for holding him up. Then he waved him gallantly on to the cashier. White man No. 2 had to step over my luggage to reach the counter. However racist white men may be, a nice rack should be the great neutralizer in an encounter that will only last a minute. You have to give racism its props; it's the only force proven to trump what a hound dog the average man is.
In the '80s and '90s, I reacted to my sexual invisibility vis-à-vis white men with faux feminist sarcasm and wannabe black nationalist contempt. But I'm 46 now and far less full of bullshit. I'm not angry. I'm hurt. It's not that I want white men to want me. I want all men to want me. I want to be seen as desirable, if I actually am. As available, if I actually am. As fuckable, though you should be so lucky. But, because I'm black, I'm somehow seen as a gender crasher, an imposter fronting as a real woman. Liable to get the sexual bum's rush at any moment. No wonder so many of us are bitches. It protects us from rejection if we make it impossible to get anywhere near us in the first place.
Sitting there in the dark, halfway through the "Wedding Crashers" montage, I realized that I was jealous of those girls just setting out in life and thought I was getting over it. I had made the most of my youth; it was someone else's turn now. I went all Mother Earthy and wise and found myself watching them with something like a maternal respect and approval, like lagging back a pace so my daughter could take her first steps or cheering as she hit her first home run. I was passing the torch, one risk-taking hottie to another. Or so I thought. In the end, all I was allowed to do was watch how "real women" live. Every woman will be able to picture herself in that parade of female pleasure, female power and eternal youth. Every woman but the black ones.
A basically sweet, silly movie has me, late in life, reconsidering my impatience with nitnoy black separatism -- black dorms, Miss Black America pageants, "The Wiz." I still believe that true separatism is not a viable option for a group comprising only 13 percent of the population, but perhaps a psychological one may well be required to maintain our mental health. As with OJ and Michael Jackson, white folks have turned on me when I've been among the most "assimilated" of Negroes, and I went slinking back to the hood. I've been soothing myself, post-"Crashers," with marathon sessions of the Soul Food compilation. What a relief. What a refuge. In that parallel universe, that majority-black fantasy land, sisters can be mere women, just women, any woman. Ones with "hair like a black girl's" or ones with weaves. Light, bright, damn near white, chocolate and everything in between. Straight. Gay. Working-class and multimillionaire. Godless and God-fearing. Bitchy and sweet. All different, all little concerned with white folks, all getting laid since the brothers there (unlike in the real world) can't take their eyes off us.
For us mules of the world, it's too bad that world doesn't exist either.
About the writer
Debra J. Dickerson is the author of "The End of Blackness" and "An American Story."
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