Things Stay the Same

Hey Everyone! Two weeks ago, in my post for the new year, I said that I wanted to partner with other voices when working on my posts. This week, it happened! Shondrea Thornton, a friend of mine who is currently pursuing a Ph.d at UCLA, wrote a wonderful piece for you all today. I wanted to highlight voices and perspectives that are not mine. Read below on her experiences when traveling to Paris and stay on the lookout for a part two sometime in the future. Thank you Shondrea for sharing this with me and the readers! -Marquita

I

I know how it feels to be a problem.

I have been a problem for as long as I can remember. I have been Black and girl and problem my whole life. I have been Black and girl and problem many times over. I have been Black and girl and both simultaneous and always problem in the eyes of my state and country.

Yes, I know how it feels to be a problem. It is mind-numbing. It is is infuriating. It is consuming. And it is boring.

When I started traveling internationally, I was mildly excited to see how the rest of the world would negotiate my being and through what eyes they would see me. An American from the South by birth and generations strong, race has always been a factor of my life and the lives of those around me. To live and die is to live and die in negotiation with the same color-line DuBois wrote of almost 115 years ago. And though it shaped me in profound ways, I always wondered what I might be like to step not necessarily over the line but to simply become it; to sink into and hide within the line, out of plain sight. To not be a perpetual problem to be solved but instead almost invisible (because to be Black is never to be completely whole). As I packed my bags, carefully eyeing each piece and assessing its ability to make me blend in, I sighed a heavy sigh of relief. The unknown, at least, could be more forgiving.

II

I knew from the moment he caught my eyes what his intentions were. After recovering from a cold, I took the recommendation of a dear friend and hopped on the metro to find a restaurant in the 15th arrondissement, a bit away from the pied-a-terre I was calling home in Montmartre. A white, middle-aged man with the beginnings of grey, he caught my gaze and smiled as he brushed past the turnstiles. I averted my gaze, not out of fear, but out of assuming; if the man was French, a return of his gaze would signal I was open to his flirtations and though I was open to dating while there, I was not particularly interested in what I was sure would be bumbling conversations across language and age. I passed. As the train pulled into the platform, I felt him brush casually against my shoulder, edging himself onto the train car. He sat not across from me, but diagonally. He was still smiling. As I pulled up an app on my phone and played my music, I hoped he’d at least have the politeness to feign a different destination than mine, an almost 20 minute ride from our current location. Yet as the seconds rolled into minutes, it was clear that he was not going to leave me alone.

I exited the station and hung back on the platform, hoping the hint would be enough. I had been in Paris for almost two weeks and my interactions with men had ranged from the charming to the borderline perverse. As I climbed the stairs to the station, I marvelled at the sameness of experience across time and space and of the banality of knowing, he was waiting for me. Headphones still in, I quickly turned up my music to a noise cancelling volume and briskly walked past him, ignorant of my own location. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him walk away in the opposite direction, seemingly dejected.

“Siri, how do I get Les Artisans?”

“Make a u-turn and continue down Rue Volontaires….”

Fuck.

III

Within the first 15 minutes of 2018 I was sexually harassed. After shouting revelry and good wishes at the stroke of midnight, myself and my friend carried down the Champs-Elysee full of cheer, sore feet aside. An older man, seemingly in his sixties, came up alongside me and tried to carry a conversation that I couldn’t place. I smiled, saying bonne annee and je ne compre, hoping he would carry on and leave me. As he reached in his wallet, my friend leaned in and asked me what was happening. I told her I didn’t know. He pulled out a wad of euro and started counting off, eyeing me up and down and continuing to speak in french. I kept smiling, though my pace quickened along with my friend.

“Je ne compre...je ne compre.”

He offered us the euro. I could see the strings on each bill. Je ne compre…. He pushed closer to me, finally speaking english to say I was so pretty. Au revoir, bonne annee. I don’t know why I was so polite. Perhaps the promise of 2018 filled me with enough joy to have good humor about it. Perhaps the joy of survival. Perhaps the chance at change.

IV

I walked down Rue Volontaires and saw that a man was a few blocks ahead. As if he instinctively felt something, he turned around to see me following. He stopped cold and waited for me to approach with a huge smile on his face. When I got close, he blocked my path and motioned for me to take off my earbuds. He initially spoke to me in French, but after seeing that I didn’t follow, switched to English. A British accent laced his words.

“I had wanted to talk to you because I needed directions. My phone doesn’t work here.”

“I can try to help, I’m not from Paris so I can just use my GPS.”

“Where are you from, love?”

“America”

“Well I KNOW that, love, but that’s a big place. Where in?”

“California”

“Still big, where in!?”

“LA”

I shuffled a bit, waiting for the moment.

“I knew you weren’t French because as nice as they are they don’t have all of...of THIS going on!”

He gestured to my hair and body.

“I saw you at the train station and I just knew I had to talk to you.”

He looks me up and down and licks his lips. I put my phone away. He doesn’t seem lost anymore.(I love this line so much)

“You know, you gotta keep doing what you’re doing! You’re such a Big…”

Here we go…

“Beautiful…”

Here it comes…

“BLACK WOMAN!”

Touchdown.

“It’s an absolute shame you don’t have men surrounding you. And I’m not saying that just to say and I hope you don’t take me for a Harvey Weinstein type…” (Yuck)

Thank you and goodnight…

“I just couldn’t resist.”

I thank him half-heartedly for his comment, not wanting to make a scene. He smiles and shuffles along his way, seemingly unlost. So it was. Nothing has changed.

V

I am approached many times in Paris for my hair, or my beauty, or my skin, or my accent. Every time it is different and every time it is for my otherness. Some marveled at me like I am a construction-- as though I was built to be ogled and critiqued. Others gestured at me like I am plaything, theirs to possess and explore. Still others just stared at me like I am oddity, my existence itself a mystery. I know what they see when they stare, their eyes constant and questioning. Though I have been chasing her my whole life, looking for her in archives, in photos, and in film...I am not her. Perhaps who they (we) are looking for never existed. Still, their inquiries for her whereabouts feel neither new or wholly familiar. I pack my bags in Paris, all the wiser. I sighed a heavy sigh of relief. The known, at least, is more comforting.

I know how it feels to be a problem.  It is mind-numbing. It is is infuriating. It is consuming. It is boring. Even in Paris.

Author: Shondrea Thornton