Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might wanna turn your head
'Cause someday you might find you're starving
And eating all of the words you just said
            ~Ani Difranco, 32 Flavors

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When I was 16, I was offered the opportunity to take a Creative Writing course at John Carroll University. Extremely excited for the chance to have my work appraised by actual college professors, I agonized over every single word of every writing assignment. Unfortunately, although my grades were impressive, my instructor rarely had anything positive to say to me. The consummate teacher’s pet, I was not comfortable with her apparent lack of interest in and feedback on my work.

Toward the end of the summer program, we had to write an argumentative essay. Since arguing is one of my superpowers, I was ready! I chose to write about our country’s issues with healthcare/insurance. Mainly the fact that insurance was paying for some men’s Viagra while others were struggling to pay for asthma rescue inhalers and hypertension meds. I found terrific resources and statistics. I even added quotes from individuals who were fighting a broken system to stay alive.

I had never been prouder of anything I’d ever written! I always doubt my writing, but this time, I was sure that I had succeeded at nailing the instructions outlined in the rubric while presenting the information with passionate flair. So, I was beyond shocked when our instructor handed back my paper with a huge “B-“ scribbled over the top without one jot of correction or criticism.

Now in the grand scheme of things, I understood that a B paper wasn’t the worst thing in the world. But I also knew that this was my best, the paper that made me believe that I belonged in the elitist program. And if my best work was a B-… well, that just may have been the worst thing in my world.

When I asked our instructor, Mrs. Tanner, why she felt my paper deserved a B-, she looked at me with what felt like contempt and said, “You write like you have power and money – you have neither.”
It was as if I’d just been verbally tasered! Once I recovered from the initial shock of her words, I realized that she hadn’t been critiquing my paper at all; she’d been critiquing me! The paper was great, it was Nikita who got the B-!!!

As a young woman of color who lived in a terrible neighborhood with an almost equally terrible school system, I expected there to be challenges walking into a private college course. However, I thought those challenges would be educational, not social status. It never dawned on me that money and power – or lack thereof – should affect the way one expresses themselves. The nerve of me, thinking that I could use words with intelligence and force!

For years, her words veined themselves through my writings like poison, weakening the power and tone of my intent. I KNEW that what she said was wrong, but I couldn’t get that truth to wrap around the girthy societal presumptions often made about this colored girl from the ghetto. I was supposed to speak a certain way, listen to specific music, dress in suitable styles, and write like I’m weak, poor, and disenfranchised.

The problem was, I’d never been “the colored girl from the ghetto,” I’m NIKITA! I have never allowed the confines of my environment to determine my being! I won’t be responsible for another’s ideals of who I’m supposed to be. I don’t have to fit your statistic and I am NOT a B-… I am 32 flavors and then some! I don’t need someone to endow me with power – I was born with it! And I don’t need money to make moves for me when I have a voice that changes the atmosphere of any room.

So I’ve decided to perform mental dialysis and cleanse the poison of her words from my system. I’ve been living with her issues inside of me, but no more. I am a powerful woman, whether I’m sleeping in my car or living in a Manhattan penthouse because it is within me. And I will never apologize for my strengths again – not even in silence.

Someone will always tell you why you don’t deserve or shouldn’t have something, but that’s not for them to say! We diminish ourselves too often because of some perceived expectation based on our histories, race, gender, height, build, education, economic standing, and much more. But, we are not the sum of these things. Never let the Mrs. Tanners of your world minimize you. You have everything you need to be the absolute best you, right now, in this moment!