Navigating journey of Black childhood to ‘womanhood’
By Alexus Means Rhone (she/her) | shades ContributingWriter
“In classrooms, their natural curiosity or passion is often mischaracterized as defiance, leading to disproportionate disciplinary action.”
“Adultification: The quiet crisis facing Black girls.” – DefenderNetwork.com
In middle school, I was known for acting out, but I also got my work done.
I offer that confession as a way of acknowledging that Mrs. Thurman, my 7th-grade social science teacher, may have been justified in how she handled the following situation.
I got my period at age 10. There was never a talk about “womanhood“ or any of that. It was just pain, with hostile, violent emotions and genuine annoyance once a month.
So, in social science class, with every historical lesson about young people, I would always raise my hand and ask, “Did girls back then have really bad periods, too?”
The class would crack up laughing.
Mrs. Thurman would ignore me.
It would’ve been nice if she’d pulled me to the side after class and discussed the nature of womanhood. As a cisgender(natural-born) woman, I’m sure at some point she had experienced this cycle of nature.
But she was a white teacher, and I was a loud, Black girl who did her work, but also asked questions not incorporated into her lesson plan. So she ignored them.
This morning, while reading “OpEd: Why Black girls deserve protection, not just praise” in my hometown’s paper, the (Houston) Defender(story below), I thought about that question and what I was really asking. I wanted to know about the universal experiences of girlhood across contexts.
Yes, there were different economies and historical narratives. But our biology was the same. And I was genuinely curious about our universal connections. I wanted to know about those experiences within the different social constructs and milieus we were studying.
Of course, at 12 years old, I didn’t quite have the language. But I was hoping that Mrs. Thurman did.
That’s a huge loss to intelligent Black girls, like myself, who was labeled a problem because I didn’t pour myself into the small receptacles of respectability.
I asked, but didn’t receive.
No one thought to make room for my curiosity.
So middle school was a shitty part of my academic journey.
Once I got to high school (and beyond), I took agency over my education, reading and researching answers to my many questions.
Good thing I did, because I’m sure there were other “Mrs. Thurmans“ perfectly okay with statistics that said that girls like me were predestined to fall through the cracks, so let ‘em.
And to that, I said, “Bytch, please!”
Well, my actions, the stories I wrote and the content I produce did.
Alexus Rhone (she/her/hers, affectionately known as “Lex”) is a writer, producer and artistic theologian who explores the power of truth when ‘dressed’ in story. Founder of Truth Meet Story, LLC, expanding empathy one story at a time, Lex tells stories about the sweetness of Black girls and the compassion of Black women on diverse platforms – page, stage, screen, web, radio and podcasts.
‘QUIET CRISIS’
Navigating journey of Black childhood to ‘womanhood’
By Alexus Means Rhone (she/her) | shades Contributing Writer
“In classrooms, their natural curiosity or passion is often mischaracterized as defiance,
leading to disproportionate disciplinary action.”
“Adultification: The quiet crisis facing Black girls.” – DefenderNetwork.com
In middle school, I was known for acting out, but I also got my work done.
I offer that confession as a way of acknowledging that Mrs. Thurman, my 7th-grade social science teacher, may have been justified in how she handled the following situation.
I got my period at age 10. There was never a talk about “womanhood“ or any of that. It was just pain, with hostile, violent emotions and genuine annoyance once a month.
So, in social science class, with every historical lesson about young people, I would always raise my hand and ask, “Did girls back then have really bad periods, too?”
The class would crack up laughing.
Mrs. Thurman would ignore me.
It would’ve been nice if she’d pulled me to the side after class and discussed the nature of womanhood. As a cisgender (natural-born) woman, I’m sure at some point she had experienced this cycle of nature.
But she was a white teacher, and I was a loud, Black girl who did her work, but also asked questions not incorporated into her lesson plan. So she ignored them.
This morning, while reading “OpEd: Why Black girls deserve protection, not just praise” in my hometown’s paper, the (Houston) Defender (story below), I thought about that question and what I was really asking. I wanted to know about the universal experiences of girlhood across contexts.
Yes, there were different economies and historical narratives. But our biology was the same. And I was genuinely curious about our universal connections. I wanted to know about those experiences within the different social constructs and milieus we were studying.
Of course, at 12 years old, I didn’t quite have the language. But I was hoping that Mrs. Thurman did.
That’s a huge loss to intelligent Black girls, like myself, who was labeled a problem because I didn’t pour myself into the small receptacles of respectability.
I asked, but didn’t receive.
No one thought to make room for my curiosity.
So middle school was a shitty part of my academic journey.
Once I got to high school (and beyond), I took agency over my education, reading and researching answers to my many questions.
Good thing I did, because I’m sure there were other “Mrs. Thurmans“ perfectly okay with statistics that said that girls like me were predestined to fall through the cracks, so let ‘em.
And to that, I said, “Bytch, please!”
Well, my actions, the stories I wrote and the content I produce did.
Alexus Rhone (she/her/hers, affectionately known as “Lex”) is a writer, producer and artistic theologian who explores the power of truth when ‘dressed’ in story. Founder of Truth Meet Story, LLC, expanding empathy one story at a time, Lex tells stories about the sweetness of Black girls and the compassion of Black women on diverse platforms – page, stage, screen, web, radio and podcasts.