How I Became Radicalized

Originally written April 8, 2020
One month into the U.S COVID-19 pandemic

I’m the type of Black person white people feel at ease around.

I am Ivy-league educated. I went to one of the top medical schools in the country. I am one of only 2% of black female physicians in the US.

But even more than that — my speech is smooth and deliberate. I keep my volume low and even, even when I am overcome with emotion. I spend hours straightening my hair with heat and chemicals. I make sure my clothes, including my long white coat, are pristine before I go to work for the day.

None of this is by accident. Quite the opposite in fact.

The version of myself I embody when I am in predominantly white spaces — which is where I spend the vast majority of my professional life — has been perfected over a lifetime.

For the vast majority of my life, a large portion of my mental, emotional and physical energy has gone into ensuring that I am not perceived as a threat to the white people in my life.

As you might imagine, this takes a large toll.

My life, for the last odd 25 years, has largely been about performing for the white gaze. When it’s all said and done, I have little energy reserves to devote to that which refuels and replenishes me.

And yet, I perform these acts as a means of survival.

I perform so that when I determine it is the right time to speak up about issues that are important to me and the Black community, I have credibility in white people’s eyes.

I perform so that the white people around me are lulled into security. I perform so that maybe, just maybe, the next time I speak unpleasant truths to them about racism or misogynoir they don’t write me off as an angry, militant black person. I perform on the off chance that maybe, this time, I will gain an audience with someone who can equalize the scales.

If I’m honest with myself, though, I perform for selfish reasons too. I do it to demonstrate to white people that I have worth and value — something that, through the White Supremacist structure of our country, I have relentlessly been conditioned to believe that I do not possess…