My 13 yr old's walking review of "13 Reasons Why"

My daughter and I walked to school together today. We talked about the show 13 Reasons Why. She said she viewed it as a TV show not representative of real mental health issues that lead to suicide. She said she watched the interviews with the directors (producers?) who said that their intended goal was to raise awareness about suicide. She said she thought they failed at it but she still liked the show. She also said that none of us are perfect, so we all have the potential for hurting people without realizing it but they shouldn't then make a video about it for revenge.

She's 13, uses the word bogus a lot but has critical thinking skills to understand fact from fiction. I don't think we should ban TV,music or movies but our kids do need a few things from us so that they are informed. I think we should be talking to kids about mental health and how to reach out to ask for help if they need it (sidebar: We should also fight to ensure mental health services are publicly funded and not only accessible to middle class families). We should also remind them of their personal power so survive and that they should fight back at life, even when it's shitty. I'm not victim blaming those that lose their lives to suicide, the rates are going up in the US and are concerning. Instead I'm saying we should destigmatize seeking mental health treatment and we should teach children (and the adults in their lives) the symptoms so that they learn how to respond. I also think resiliency has to be fostered--our children need adults affirming their worth but they also simply need to know they are worthy. These should be a normal part of our daily conversations--at home, in schools, in youth organizations, and in faith communities.
Hi I shared my suicide attempt during our walk. I shared my bouts with depression stemming from my trauma history. I shared that I went to therapy. I told her that I was happy I woke up from the overdose and I was happy to still be here. She listened and asked questions but kept a fast walking pace because she was meeting up with her friends--I did say she was 13, right? I wanted to kiss her on the forehead when she turned left to head towards school and I turned right to head towards the train but then I knew that would be bogus of me.

Q: What's in a name? A: freedom

I am the first born daughter of Deborah Wilson and Wash Wilson, Jr. They named me Monique Antionette Wilson. I liked my name growing up, despite being called almost last at every school event and ceremony because my last name was at the end of the alphabet. I also tolerated being corrected by others because my middle name, Antionette, was spelled incorrectly since my version had the "i" before the "o".  My name sounds French and that made me feel fancy and sophisticated. I had many nicknames, some I loved "Cover Girl" (my older male cousins Butch & Teddy said I was as pretty as a Cover Girl! I love me some them!) and some I grew to despise "Crow" (because of my skinny bird legs). Then there were the school years of being called "dead eye" because I have a lazy eye and being called a "slut" behind my back. Ahhhh, names, they carry weight. 

Over the years, I created physical distance between my sexually abusive father and me by going to college and not returning home, but I found myself still wanting to "free" myself from his surname. Initially I thought that I could easily just change my last name to my mother's maiden name of Wilkerson. It would mean just adding three letters, KER, in the middle of Wilson. Simple enough. I was also reading more and more about the Black experience in the US during that same time period. I had recently read Kwame Toure's (formerly Stokely Carmicheal) book "Stokley Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan Africanism". It included a speech he gave at my alma mater, Morgan State University, that resonated with me politically. I also read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X". He too, changed his name from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabbaz as part of his political and religious journey. "Assata: An Autobiography" by Assasta Shakur (formerly Joanne Chesimard) crystalized my understandings of the gender politics within the Black Panther party as well as the criminalization and surveillance of Black bodies at the hands of the US government. These revolutionaries and authors sharpened my emergent thinking on black and Pan African politics but they also influenced my thinking on naming.

I learned that your name is yours. I also learned that your name can shape your identity and your politics. Or did I learn that your identity and politics can influence your name? This is a cart-horse debate that I don't wish to take up here but I do believe that my search for self, a self independent of my father's unwanted advances and a self free of white men's chains were emerging simultaneously.  I descend from a long history of racial and gender oppression and a long history of black women pushing back against these histories in an attempt to chart their own destinies.  Although, I lacked the sophistication to name exactly what I was doing when I decided to change my name at 23 years old, I know that these histories informed my act of resistance.

So, while I was in my master's program, I went to the Black Studies library at Ohio State University one day to do research and checked out 2-3 books on African names. I eventually found two names I liked Sekile (again with the missellings, I think it is actually spelled Sakile) and Nzinga (also spelled Nzingha and Njinga, sigh). I had decided I would change my sur/last name to an African name but I was not sure which one to go with. Sekile/Sakile was from the southern region in Africa, a Zulu name that meant "peace" and Nzinga/Nzingha was the name of a fierce 16th century, warrior queen who ruled a region in Africa, which is now Angola. http://www.blackpast.org/gah/queen-nzinga-1583-1663. I liked both names. One evoking peace and one evoking independence, resistance, and strength. Monique Nzinga? Monique Sekile? I liked the names but neither had a ring to them when combined with my birth name. I mentioned my struggle to someone and they quickly suggested, why not use both? Nzinga Sekile? Sekile Nzinga? Sekile Nzinga. yes, Sekile Nzinga!

I shared my name change decision with one of my childhood friends. Interestingly, her name was Monik (pronounced, Monique), too. She was actually in the process of changing her name to Akilah Njeri. We cracked up at the similarity of our name choices and at the coincidence of our timing. Our friends and family weren't as amused. As I shared my new "radical" name with friends and family, I was met with backlash and disapproval by some. "So, what do you think you're blacker than me?!", one friend asked defensively. "I understand you wanting to connect with your African ancestry but what about your white ancestors?!", a family member quipped. Those were the statements from those who were brazen enough to have face to face conversations with me. Eventually, most came to call me "Monique..I mean Sekile!" and then later, just Sekile. Anyone over the age of 60 got a pass, my Grannie still calls me Monique and I still answer to it.  I never told anyone that I was changing my name not only to identify with my African ancestry but also to symbolically sever my connections to my child molesting father. 

Over the next few years, I met co-workers and former classmates who were going through the same name changing process and they encouraged me to not just "go by" Sekile but actually change my name legally. I married in 1996 but had not begun the legal name change process.  So our marriage license says Monique. However, my pregnancy with my first child served as the catalyst for my official name change. I wanted my chosen name on his birth certificate and filed the necessary paper work at the court house in Prince George's county in Maryland in 1997. 

It was at that time that I made the difficult decision to also take my husband's name. I had just spent the last 4 years claiming my independence from histories of violence and trauma but in this case, this was a man that loved and respected me. This was joy. It was a confusing time, so I succumbed to the societal pressure that most US women face to take their husbands' names. My partner said he didn't care but I was not sure. He loved me and I wanted him to know that I loved him.  I became Sekile Nzinga-Johnson legally in 1997.

I feel like I lost a little of myself in that decision but I later began to appreciate having a name that was connected to the Black experience here in the US. That is where my closest ancestry lies and I am deeply indebted to all those ordinary blacks folks, like the Johnsons of Mobile, Alabama, who worked hard, struggled to stay alive and contributed to this society with little recognition. Maybe this is me rationalizing my heteronormative decision so that I feel less gendered but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I am still in the process of healing from my child sexual abuse. It is lifelong. I have accepted the infinity of its pain. Yet, in the past year, I've also have found myself circling back to appreciating the name Monique. Monique lives. Monique symbolizes the innocence that should have been my childhood. Monique is joy. She coexists WITH and IN Sekile. Yet she has stayed hidden, dormant within until she felt safe to come back out and play. It's taken years, decades for her to feel secure in this world. As Sekile, I find myself calling upon Monique quite often these days. Monique reminds me what real pain is and to not let the small things in life take up more space than they deserve. Monique reminds me that I need and deserve time to play and be free. Monique makes me speak on it and act on it. injustice. speak, Sekile! Monique, with her working class reality, reminds PhD'd Sekile to remain wild and untamed by middle class respectability politics and fired up about inequity. I am Sekile. I am Monique.

Been thinking about another name change these days....Sekile Monique Nzinga-Johnson. I know, it's kind of a mouthful! Until then, I'm going to go drink a glass of sweet tea and hula hoop with Monique.

-Sekile M. Nzinga-Johnson

p.s. 2/10/20. I recently dropped the Johnson from my last name although I kept my partner of 26 years. Nzinga-Johnson is still my legal name but Nzinga is what I will use professionally and socially. I continue to evolve into myself and he continues to be the man who is secure in his masculinity with no need to "own" me or mark me as being his possession. Freedom lives here.

--Sekile M. Nzinga

p.s.s. 3/28/24 My new SS card and my new license came in the mail today. I am now officially/legally Sekile M. Nzinga, a free assed black woman. 

In Memory and Momentum of Karyn Washington

A couple of days ago I learned that a 22 year old black woman named Karyn Washington had ended her young life. I didn’t know Karyn, or her presence on social media, although I am truly impressed by what I am beginning to learn about her life and work. Last night as I was reading about her work with “For Black Girls” and #DarkSkinRedLip project, I discovered she attended the same undergraduate institution that I did, Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. She seemed like someone I would have been friends with when I was a student there.

 This realization, this connection was triggering for me and serves as the impetus for this blog. You see, I was a 22 year old student at Morgan State in 1993. I arrived at Morgan State’s steps a severely damaged person, having survived a childhood of sexual, physical and psychological abuse at the hands of my father and physical, and emotional abuse as well as neglect at the hands of my mother who knew of his crimes but chose to keep him in our home. I too, tried to end my life at some point when I was younger because the pain was too great to bear but my spirit was stronger than the pills in that moment and I woke up. I took to hanging in the streets and to engaging in risky behaviors to survive my home reality. These behaviors were not without consequence, I also had to survive slut shaming from my peers as well as opportunistic guys taking sexual advantage of my vulnerability and desire to simply be loved. The letter of acceptance from Morgan was the only one that came my senior year. It was my escape hatch. My haven. My safe space. My reboot/Monique 2.0. But when I arrived to O’Connell Hall in 1989, I was damaged, traumatized, and in great need of repair. How is it that I am still here and Karyn is not?

I am haunted by this question.

What went right for me and went so very wrong for my sister? This question is not about some “strong black woman” victim blaming stance but more about which systems failed her. It is a structural question that I am confronting. She and her beautiful red lips deserves to be here with me. with us. Karyn’s untimely death has also forced me to accept that I am indeed here. Still here. This may at first appear narcissistic to state that her death has inspired me to document the beautiful ugliness that is life but I would argue instead that this moment right here is about the interconnectedness of our lives. The travesty of Karyn’s death has forced me, black woman surviving, to speak. I have been at the crossroads, I have decided that this life was not worth living. I’ve acted on it once. Why did I wake up? I do not have the answers as to why Karyn is no longer with us. She will be missed deeply. But I am awakened by her infectious spirit and it is now running through my veins.

I must—we MUST survive. live. together.

 Many folks have told me I should document a black girl’s survival. my survival. I have shied away from such a venture because I have feared that documenting my pains—past and present would render me exposed unto myself and I would not be able to put myself back together again to function day to day. But sista, mother, warrior, Audre Lorde has already reminded me that my silence will not protect me. And so this blog begins, acknowledging my/our intertwined histories of pain and joy and charting the journey forward. I shall testify here in this space. I’m not sure what will come but it is time that I speak. This blog is for Karyn Washington. This blog is brown and black girls. This blog is for me. I’m (we are) still here. I (we) need to bear witness to life. to claw at it. to fight it back. to dance with it. to claim it. RIP, brown girl. We carry your torch with the brightest of red lips.