Ride or Die by Shanita Hubbard

Author:Shanita Hubbard [HUBBARD, SHANITA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2022-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

It’s been three weeks since you were looking for your friend

The one you let hit it and never called you again

…

Plus, when you give it up so easy you ain’t even foolin’ him

If you did it then, then you’d probably fuck again

Was Tamera hearing this? There were so many lyrics that confirmed who the “birds” were! Showing off your ass ’cause you’re thinking it’s a trend.

“Girl, yes,” I said looking over at Tamera, waving my hand to the beat in praise. Couldn’t Tamera see that “queens” like us were not birds? We were a different type of Black woman, the kind who was worthy of respect. Lauryn was making that clear. We stayed in our room listening to the full CD and I continued to fall in love with the details of Lauryn’s music. I had always loved the question that she posed at the end of “Doo Wop”: How you gonna win when you ain’t right within?

My friends and I were part of Lauryn’s tribe and winning. We were conscious Black women—we could quote Carter G. Woodson in our sleep, were committed to “fixing” the racist criminal justice system, preferred open mics over clubs, didn’t sleep with men “too quickly,” and had natural hair.

Plus the brothers called me queen. They constantly said I was nothing like those “other girls,” and I considered it a supreme compliment. Being called a queen was their recognition of my Black girl magic. In 1998 we weren’t using the phrase “Black girl magic” yet, but the essence of it was always clear and queen meant that Black men saw that in me, and it was invaluable. My self-worth was connected to being viewed by men as separate from those other girls, which was only a softer way of saying I’m better than those girls. Or at least that’s how it registered to me.

I swam in Lauryn’s words because she validated the piece of me that needed to be considered separate and unequal to other women. Being considered different from the other girls who had sex too quickly, wore straight hair and weaves, were loud, rocked tight clothes, and hung out in the clubs felt like I had the “right” version of Black womanhood that would equal success, love, male adoration, and respect. It felt like I was winning like Lauryn stated. It took me a long time to understand that if winning meant “conscious queens” were granted permission to use a skewed standard of Black womanhood defined by men to marginalize other sisters, then perhaps we needed to lose.

Conscious queens raised on a steady diet of New York hip-hop weren’t the only sisters who thought this way. There were plenty of sisters born and bred all around the country, south or north of the Mason-Dixon Line who aimed to mirror this acceptable version of Black womanhood. My friend Vanessa had flawless skin the color of coffee diluted with just a dash of milk. Her eyes were large and cat-shaped with lashes so long they still called out to you beneath her glasses.

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