Brave

Vista of the Museum from Constitution Avenue, looking across the north lawn to the Washington Monument. Photo credit: Alan Karchmer/NMAAHCcaption W hen the six-month backlog of free visitors passes have ended and all the novelty of having toured the National Museum of African American History and Culture has dimmed, perhaps my family with go there. Maybe by then I'll be able to manage that painful tour. Oprah Winfrey's uttered narrative identifier of the museum as a source of pride and healing thing for us is something I don't entirely agree with. I had pride in myself before  the idea of this museum even existed. So the museum as a pride tool doesn't hold true for me at least. I can't and don't speak for every member of our race in our country. Understand that this is me, Afro-Latina first person singular. I was raised by many mentors to internalize that pride in a period of our history when James Brown could be heard any day on the radio singing Say

I used to work as a fry cook at the SONIC. It was a brief stint, mostly working the night shift.  I was hired for the night shift because no one wanted to cook for it. See, all the factories working nightshift would put in evening meal orders right at the beginning of that shift for 60 or more people at a time, and since they were the bulk of the small town business for the drive-in, you had to get each massive order right, keep everything hot and get them out quickly. On a Friday morning,  I went to pick up my first paycheck, happy to be getting a paycheck locally instead of traveling the over 70 miles I did to get summer work as a dark-skinned Black girl in that region. I was clueless about what was going to happen; I only realize now, years later, that subsequent events may be the reason I have avoided  SONIC restaurants since repatriating to the United States nearly 15 years ago. I had signed for and collected my paycheck and was weaving my way around the skating carhops