I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“Particularly exhausting are white people who don’t know they are white, and those who need to be white. But of all the white people I’ve met—and I’ve met a lot of them in more than three decades of living, studying, and working in places where I’m often the only Black woman in sight—the first I found exhausting were those who expected me to be white.” 

The dominant of arc of I’m Still Here involves Brown’s efforts to maintain her Blackness—and thus her dignity—in White spaces. This is made more challenging by Whiteness’s conflicting expectations of how she should behave. On the one hand, she is expected to assimilate into White culture. On the other, she is frequently exoticized by her White coworkers as a Black woman. This all reflects Brown’s broader theme that Whiteness only allows enough Blackness to affirm Whiteness’ goodness and prominence.

“Tiffani was my bridge to understanding that Black is beautiful whether it looked nerdy like me or cool like her. I could choose what felt right for me without needing to be like everyone, or needing everyone to be like me. Black is not monolithic. Black is expansive, and I didn’t need the approval of whiteness in order to feel good in my skin; there was no whiteness available to offer an opinion. It was freedom.” 

Until she meets Tiffani, Brown struggles to embrace her Black identity. At home in Toledo, she largely assimilates herself into the majority-White culture of her school and neighborhood. When she code-switches to better fit in during summers in Cleveland, it feels like a pose—one her Black friends see through. Tiffani teaches her that Blackness runs deeper than the way one speaks or behaves. Rather, Blackness involves asserting one’s identity and dignity as Black person, both inwardly and outwardly.

“The stereotype about sassy, disrespectful Black girls was not lost on me—but until then, I had thought it was just a convenient movie trope. I didn’t realize it could be used against me.” 

Given the illusory racial harmony at her high school, Brown never realized she was the target of stereotyping by her teachers. This changes when Ms. Phillips publicly admits how her seating charts reflect implicit racism in that they tend to separate Black girls whom the teacher fears will be disruptive.