{"id":1792,"date":"2026-08-02T20:08:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T03:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maginecreativeservices.com\/shadesmagazine2023\/?p=1792"},"modified":"2026-08-02T20:10:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T03:10:52","slug":"quiet-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maginecreativeservices.com\/shadesmagazine2023\/quiet-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"‘QUIET CRISIS’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Navigating journey of Black childhood to ‘womanhood’<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

By Alexus Means Rhone (she\/her) | shades Contributing<\/strong><\/em> W<\/em><\/strong>riter<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIn classrooms, their natural curiosity or passion is often mischaracterized as defiance,<\/em>
leading to disproportionate disciplinary action.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAdultification: The quiet crisis facing Black girls.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 DefenderNetwork.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In middle school, I was known for acting out, but I also got my work done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I got my period at age 10. There was never a talk about \u201cwomanhood\u201c or any of that. It was just pain, with hostile, violent emotions and genuine annoyance once a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, in social science class, with every historical lesson about young people, I would always raise my hand and ask, \u201cDid girls back then have really bad periods, too?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The class would crack up laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mrs. Thurman would ignore me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It would\u2019ve been nice if she\u2019d pulled me to the side after class and discussed the nature of womanhood. As a cisgender <\/strong>(natural-born) woman, I\u2019m sure at some point she had experienced this cycle of nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This morning, while reading “OpEd: Why Black girls deserve protection, not just praise” in my hometown’s paper, the (Houston) Defender<\/a> <\/strong>(story below)<\/em>, I thought about that question and what I was really asking. I wanted to know about the universal experiences of girlhood across contexts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, at 12 years old, I didn\u2019t quite have the language. But I was hoping that Mrs. Thurman did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s a huge loss to intelligent Black girls, like myself, who was labeled a problem because I didn\u2019t pour myself into the small receptacles of respectability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I asked, but didn\u2019t receive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No one thought to make room for my curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So middle school was a shitty part of my academic journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once I got to high school (and beyond), I took agency over my education, reading and researching answers to my many questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good thing I did, because I\u2019m sure there were other \u201cMrs. Thurmans\u201c perfectly okay with statistics that said that girls like me were predestined to fall through the cracks, so let \u2018em.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And to that, I said, \u201cBytch, please!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, my actions, the stories I wrote and the content I produce did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OpEd: Why Black girls deserve protection, not just praise<\/a><\/blockquote>