Where Are The Black Women?
What Louisiana Voters Might Do For the First Time
We were a pretty wonderful mishmash of American culture, in my childhood grammar school. Simply, it wasn’t unusual to hear some of my friends speaking languages other than English; and it was easy and exciting to grow interested in new things by pure association or exposure to the lunch box one desk over.
I went to this same school for eight years — from first grade through eighth. The school was over a church and there was a convent upstairs from us where all the nuns lived; and a rectory next door, where the priests lived. Across the small one-way street from the school was the backside of Columbia University’s Teacher’s College (where my mom got her Masters); and a half a block west across a much wider street was Union Theological Seminary.
We were practically sandwiched between academic and religious professionals in a part of Manhattan that invited students and professors from everywhere in the world.
My grammar school classmates were of every hue and cultural origin too. English was a second or even third language for some. There were international students, local yokels, students from high and low-income families and everyone in between.
We were school children with our own stories and histories; and, in my memory of things, there was no one way to be in order to be acceptable. No real majority over here or minority over there vibes either. People were people were people. Friends were friends were friends too.
One school-mate’s family owned Moon Palace — a Chinese restaurant mainstay on Broadway between 111th and 112th street — which she took me to one day after school, on my way home (just one block and a half away from my front door). Another school friend’s mom owned a restaurant near Columbia University too, which was called Cutrone’s. There was a class/school bully (I still remember her name!). There were jokesters. There were the cute boy twins. There were shy folk and the ones you could hear roaring through the stairwells too. We grew up together in that school.
Yet, there was ONE thing that really stood out to me as missing; and it struck me very early (as my mother recalls the timing) into my first grade experience.
When I was in the first grade, my friend Jeanene and I looked around and saw no Black nuns. Not even one. In this otherwise much appreciated racial/cultural/social mélange of school children and the surrounding area, there were no Black women-nuns. We were so sure that this was odd enough not to be true, that we thought then that maybe they just didn’t exist. Why else wouldn’t they be here?
Seven-year-old me and my friend Jeanene went up to Sister Mary Margaret (?) and asked her very simply: “Are there any Black nuns (at our school)?”
I’ve gotta hand it to Sr. Mary Margaret. She whipped out that answer real quick: “No”.
M’kay, lady. We went back to doing whatever first graders do.
It was the first time (one of the first times) that I had the actual thought “well, maybe I’ll become a nun.” (We ALLLLL know how THAT turned out LOL. whooops.)
It stood out as odd to me though, thankfully. Yes thankfully I had the sense at seven years old to understand and question the absence of Black women in leadership. (Thanks, Mom!) They/we belonged. So why weren’t we there?
In 2021, it should easily stand out as odd and feel crazy when we look around the members of Congress representing the state of Louisiana and see that there has NEVER been a woman of color representing that state ever. Literally never in history has a woman of color/a Black woman ever been elected to Congress by Louisiana voters. C’mon y’all.
We have the chance to change this, by sending Karen Carter Peterson to the United States House of Representatives on behalf of Louisiana — repping the 2nd congressional district — and we should embrace this chance with a hard meaningful hug! She’s a lawyer, a daughter, a good human being and a grown public servant who first began her work on behalf of her fellow Louisiana residents as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention at eighteen years old. EIGHTEEN! Come through #KCP. Come through Sis.
Call your friends, family, or call strangers (phone-bank). However you engage, let’s work together to get Karen Carter Peterson to Congress. When we do, we’re not only shifting the optics of what representation looks like for Louisiana and also for future generations of young women and girls who are watching; we are also putting a capable and more than qualified public servant in her well-earned place of leadership. It really just looks straight-up nuts when Black women are excluded from the fabric of the legislative branch of our government in today’s world; similar for me to the missing leadership of Black nuns in my grammar school growing up.
As for the nuns in my grammar school, they took the genuine question that had been posed by two first-grader Black girls to heart. A few days later, they pulled Jeanene and me out of class — leading us across the hall into an empty classroom. We had no idea why.
When we stepped inside, there sitting in one of our tiny-kid chairs was a Black nun, in her blue and white habit. I vaguely remember her being West Indian too. She welcomed us with a smile, as we sat on the floor in front of her — as if it was story time (and, in the warmest of ways, it really was). We spent a good amount of time with her that day, hearing some of her story and asking her questions too. While I don’t remember what we exactly talked about, I’ll never forget the feeling of seeing her, being seen by her and also being heard by the nuns at our school, of course, too. Love. Love. Love.
The nun we first approached with a genuine question, about whether there were nuns that looked like me, understood something that many more Americans need to: That is, very simply, that representation matters.
You just never know who is watching.
