Reclaiming My Voice

Finding the Balance Between Black Parenting and Eastern Wisdom  

What happens when the children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard generation grows up?  Image credit: Andrea Musto  

As a child of Black parents in the ‘90s, I wasn’t allowed to disagree with adults. I recall bringing my notebook to a teacher's desk because she marked a question wrong on my assignment and right on another student’s. The teacher, in a fit of annoyance, took my notebook and flung it across the room and told me to take my seat. “I will, after you put my notebook back in my hand,” I told her.  

I wasn’t her dog and had no intention of playing fetch. She called my home, and I was punished for being disrespectful. I argued to my mom my only offense wasn’t raising my hand from my desk but she could have told me to go back to my seat without propelling my notebook across the room. My mom accused me of talking back and threatened me into silence.  

It was in that moment — and others to follow — I learned I was expected to respect authority, even if authority was unjust, disrespectful, or stressed-senseless. As I became an adult, I saw remnants of this childhood training seeping into how I managed conflict. I would silence myself in disagreements with elders and authority figures, even when I knew my thoughts were valid. 

The lump in my throat would almost choke me, and the nagging feeling I should've said something followed me around like a shadow. I often regretted not standing up for myself or others, and that regret saturated my inner thoughts for days after the event concluded.    

Step 1: Choosing to Speak Up  

I got sick of that gnawing feeling and decided to face and conquer it. I began to "talk back” more often, even in places where power dynamics were imbalanced. When I thought something was incorrect, unjust, or harmful, I spoke up. And in many cases, to my surprise, I didn't receive much backlash. In cases where I did, people would publicly or privately support my comments, thanking me for speaking up. People respected that I wasn’t afraid to challenge authorities or share unpopular beliefs. It was affirming in a way that delighted my childhood self.  

Step 2: Releasing the Need for Validation  

The thing about living is that we’re constantly evolving, thus so are our lessons. Sometimes the lessons we fought hard to master require alterations. Over time, I became almost addicted to the affirmations that soothed my inner child, so the next level's assignment was to release the need for validation. 

Life sent my teacher in the form of my most challenging supervisor. "You always have something to say," she’d often say in a derogatory tone. The comment would jolt me back to my childhood where I wasn’t allowed to have an opinion outside of that prescribed by the "authority." 

But by this stage in life, I’d worked so hard to cultivate my voice, I refused to allow her to silence me.  Knowing my voice wouldn’t produce the outcomes I was seeking, I continued speaking out. I persisted in what sometimes felt like an egotistical battle of wills between the two of us, and resolving the issue at hand regularly a casualty of war.  

Step 3: Question Motives (even My Own)  

But eventually, I started questioning the aim of voicing my dissent. It started to seem less earnest and more like a vain attempt to be recognized as one of the smartest people in the room. I noticed I was engaging in conversations that weren’t leading to increased understanding, nuance-informed problem-solving, or greater respect or compassion for each other. Ego aside, isn't that the ultimate goal of discourse?  

I wondered if it was ever an appropriate time in discourse with my supervisor to “let her have it” and wave the white flag in conservation instead of defeat. So I asked the universe for clarity and the ability to discern when my voice is necessary and how to use it effectively (or not at all). I wanted to learn to be silent when necessary in wisdom, not fear.  

Step 4: Finding Everything isn't All Right ... or Wrong  

I attended a Prajna course that focused on Buddhist wisdom and discernment. One of the points in the lecture focused on the fallacy of good and bad. I connected with this teaching because we often don’t know the value of life events until later in life. I’ve had experiences that seemed to nearly break me — break me open so I could evolve. Time reveals truths and turns blacks and whites to greys.  Just as good and bad get murky, so can right and wrong; the Prajan speaker encouraged us to take time to find what accuracy may be found in opposing perspectives. I’m not saying speaking out isn't useful or that unjust perspectives don't exist or need challenging, but noticing how discernment could nudge me toward a different strategy was a profound lesson.  

In fact, it appeared to be the key to finding the middle ground between silence in fear and speaking in vain.  

Many of us were born in the “children should be seen and not heard” age and have had to work diligently to shake off the shackles of silence. In that process, some of us have mutated into a got-to-be-right head-a** adults who’ve lost sight of the power of inquisitiveness and, when necessary, silence.  Understanding all battles aren’t worth fighting and not all conversation are battles can reveal the next frontier in our personal evolution.  

Step 5: Ask Key Questions  

Let’s ask ourselves, “Am I seeking to understand the perspective of the other person before offering my own?” … "How is this person right?” before interjecting why we believe we are.  Are we offering a perspective so we can better understand each other, or are we attempting to persuade someone to agree with us? Is my goal to embarrass them or build with them? If the latter, what is the best approach? 

Sometimes a probing thought process can get us closer to resolve than digging our heels into our stances. It gives us something to put into practice, prioritizing understanding over ego. This may allow us more conversations that yield us "Ahh, I've never thought of it that way." A full bucket cannot receive. And this guidance saves us the cost of failing to learn at the hands of assuming we already have the answers. Having the knowledge that true purposes of conversations are understanding, compassion, communication, and enlightenment, we can choose to speak with courage and curiosity or be silent in discernment.