Trust No B**** Trust No N****

In which I lost a friend and gained a spine and a viral wedding disaster made the internet rethink the politics of jealousy.

The boat is leaving in 30 minutes, she told me coolly.

I stood open-mouthed at the top of the stairwell, looking down at my gorgeous childhood friend in horror.

On my hip was the foster child I was helping my parents watch. His birth mother, a well to do Italian local, was several seasons into her cosplay of what she thought a hood rat was. She had a tattoo across her chest, scrolled out in an ornate font, that said TRUST NO BITCH, TRUST NO NIGGA.

When I first saw this tattoo I scoffed. I was too shocked to ask her which friend had caused this choice (a story she would have loved to tell me as a drama in three parts) and too busy trying to figure out what class of cultural appropriation is tattooing NIGGA on your white body.

Maybe if I had heeded the warning I might have dodged years of coddling and reeling from supposedly supportive friends blindsiding me with a very special kind of betrayal.

And I had other things to worry about here. My head (hair) as my aunties would say, was a proper mess. I had planned to refresh my nails later that evening after I had cleaned my new Frenchie puppy crying in the living room. But it was still only 11 am.

“You don’t have time to get ready! Just grab some things. We have to leave in ten minutes” she said, strutting to our garden room to collect her already packed bags.

I had been up until that point, helping everyone else. My friend, her boyfriend, the child, and the dog who would eventually grow up and snore in every one of my TikTok videos.

But let me confess something to you dear reader: I was years off from being on TikTok, signing for the show I am currently in pre-production for, or feeling a sense of peace with God, myself, and others.

At this point, I was an expensively educated, reluctant college dropout with no plan beyond that day’s child care and this new, crippling sense of shame that followed me everywhere.

My college professors and friends were astounded at my lack of self-advocacy to finish my education. I could not tell them why at my big age without church and parental approval I simply could not function. I did not have a romantic prospect in sight. I had no idea what to say when people asked me what I wanted out of life. I felt guilty for having been given the world only to curl up in a privileged ball, anxious and adrift. I did not like or respect myself as much and it showed. I could not explain the intense, all-encompassing fear that would paralyze me at random times of the day or the way I would wake up and count down the hours till I could go to sleep again and not feel haunted by the shape of my life.

The pillars of my sense of self-worth had been acceptance in my church, my education, and pats on the back. The pandemic and my stab at holding my convictions had taken all of them. I had lost my community, no one was (seemingly) proud of me, everyone was (absolutely ) worried for me, and my big shiny life had been reduced to a fear management project that I was failing spectacularly at. Each month, more tasks I could not do out of fear would add up.

All I had was a dull ache in my upper left shoulder, a growing collection of vintage designer clothing, and more smiling friends than I had in a long time.

I had never been more liked than when I was miserable and flaying about. Something was comforting to people, to know that even with the best advantages, the adoring family, and my beautiful childhood, the joy and success that they secretly feared and wanted for themselves was out of my reach as well.

While I have had sweet, heart friends and a mom who believed I deserved more, I had way more smiling people happy to nod that yes, that was a crazy thing to want or work for wasn’t it?

I was fine or surviving. None of those states inspire or challenge other people. Company, it seems, loves misery right back.

But I was not dead, yet. And I had been raised by Caribbean women who had amidst their disappointments and trials faced them in leather gloves, fabulous hats, and outfit sets that stunned random uncles on the street and small children alike.

I had spent the pandemic adding to my arsenal, editing and testing the outfits that I would later wear to the Zoom meetings that changed my life or when recording content as someone who by the grace of God had fallen deeply in love with her life and her purpose and the God and community that found her. But I was not that person yet.

I was, however, a woman with a killer wardrobe. And I had a successful, gorgeous Black friend visiting me who had curiously failed to mention the fabulous beach weekend we had been invited to by a kind and sweet family and the toast of the town was starting hours earlier than I thought.

She had prepared herself already and proceeded to yell up to me repeatedly how we had to go, that I was running out of time, and that we MUST get to the marina by a certain time.

When I pulled myself and some pieces together, I fled downstairs in a backless, silky handkerchief dress that she picked apart. I held fast and did not change because all I had left holding me upright and looking people in the eye those days were my manners and my clothes. She proceeded to pick apart the white orchid I brought as a hostess gift, insisting that she didn’t have a gift and no one cared and who brought flowers to people’s homes anyway. She shook the open bottle of some drink mix she had already drank from. “I’m just bringing this” she laughed. My mother thankfully backed me, and I clutched my orchid in the back seat and swallowed hard.

When we pulled up to the estate a couple of things became abundantly clear.

1: There was no marina because the home had a private dock for the boats.

2: No one was rushing to get on any of the aforementioned boats, because the plan was to go way later for sunset.

3: The party hadn’t even fully assembled, as people were out and about still. We were offered books to read and fully expected to simply lounge about until dinner was delivered.

My friend, who had proudly been close friends with this family and had been to this beach house many times, had failed to mention any of these key details when rushing me into the car.

I am grateful to say the hosts of that weekend were exceptional people. My hometown is a beautiful place, but some of the finest things within it are owned by people who are very ugly inside. That was not the case here.

Now it took me much longer to get here emotionally, but now I am also grateful to say that my friendship imploded over a series of covert and then overt actions my friend took over those days. I lost the friendship and slightly my cool over text regrettably at one point, but I gained a very useful lesson right at the start of what would become the rest of my life. It’s also the lesson at the center of the story that comes after this personal one, about a now-viral wedding and an infamous makeup artist that has sent many corners of the internet in a tizzy.

What is the difference between a socially awkward person who innocently messes and a socially calculated person who hijacks your sense of self, time, and energy to feel better about the lack in their own life?

I had come to the beach house to relax, not compete in an epic showdown of Which Of The Only Two Black Women Present Will Be Best Liked.

I did not see this coming, as my friend who is truly more talented and pretty than most famous people, had recently had the career win of a lifetime that had catapulted her to fame. I did not expect her to grow increasingly irritated at my ease in the place or my summer outfits being complimented. It was calculated, to give me little to no warning that we had to go, to create a false sense of urgency so I wouldn’t have as much time to put together something nice for myself, and to erode my confidence in my choice of a gift.

I did not expect her to fall for it, the lie that says there is only so much to go around for women, or Black women especially. That there could only be one of us. I did not think she would see my gain and comfort as an affront to her own. Instead of it being proof of what was possible, this pinprick of desire leading her to clarify her wants, it was an insult. Who did I think I was to show up that way?

What little self-respect I had left for myself or whatever childhood experiences I had that made me feel at home in such a place rattled her. I have rarely told this story (and will not tell the extent of it) because at the time it just felt deeply personal and puzzling.

I did not see it as a pattern of intimidation that our sisters would adopt and employ from a politic of scarcity, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

I did not realize that her actions and anger caused such a rift between all of us that no further collaboration or relationship could continue.

I have realized that the people in your life and the relationships you keep around are political. Our choice to appease people or stay close friends with people who are committed to eroding our sense of self and self-respect is a politically destructive act.

Not in a partisan way, but in the sense that it takes a kind of power, effort, and intention to build a life that honors your dignity, your joy, your peace, your time, and your love. To do so, for all women and Black women in America, is a kind of defiant act still.

This society socialized its members for hundreds of years to believe that all women and especially Black women, existed to further the needs, the money, and the desires of land-owning men. Our access to peace, rest, joy, and comfort was not important.

The laws and customs streamlined and legalized this culture. As of recently, as in a mere few decades ago, women have been allowed and free to choose to live their lives as whole human beings with significantly more social power.

When women do get those things, it is seen as a competition because ease and care have been so rarely meted out by the men in power. There were the enslaved women who had to work the fields and the enslaved house women who got to wear the perfumed left over powder from their enslaver’s vanity table. There were the few good husbands who respected their wives, and then a bunch of guys who took advantage of women because nothing socially or legally demanded more from them. Advertisers used to only have one Black girl in the line up, and everyone had to fight for the one spot.

The issue is that even as we have started to move away from that scarcity, many people still have the narratives and stories of the ever-giving, long-suffering, sacrificial, likable girl. And for people obsessed with being liked and being chosen, they have to jettison the deep thing inside them that they know to be true. They do like feather robes! They do want to audition for that show! They do want to go back to school! They do want to be a stay at home mom with a house keeper! They do want to do journalism in a war zone abroad and win a Pulitzer! They do actually want that hot pink Barbie flip phone! When they successfully kill that thing inside them and convince themselves they are fine, it is painful to see another woman walk by who has rejected that lie.

Because wait! Socially, it still really isn’t a problem that the mom hasn’t had her favorite meal in three months. Or the wife hasn’t been given the time to have an equally pleasurable sexual relationship with her husband. When women do fan girl over things it is demeaned and mocked, their tastes inconsequential and fake. When they don’t take care of themselves physically they are mocked for being slobs and undesirable. But when they do take time and effort they are shallow and waste time that could be spent on the home.

Socially, when you dig deeper into the cultural stories about what a woman and her time is worth, it is directly tied to what it does for other people.

It is why we see women who are so happy to be married to men that they have to raise and coach. If the bar is being of service and being married, then yes they’ve won even though they have to manage, beg, and sweat their way through providing for a grown man.

It’s why we hear stories of the mom who cried because she never got to watch her favorite show because she and her husband had trained the kids that at any point they had the full power to dictate what was on the TV and what she as a human being likes is never on the table.

It is why people will think they are your dear friend and still expect you to dim your light in service to them not feeling uncomfortable with the way they shut their own light off.

There is nothing wrong with sacrificing for your loved ones, being resilient, or giving.

There is something very wrong, however, with the persistent need to humble, subjugate, and domesticate women into being the chosen slaves for a family or a man.

There is something wrong with men who play in their wives’ faces and then come out grinning on podcasts talking about how great it is their wife has “so much grace” and is “different from other women” for letting them have a new girlfriend when the wife is in the trenches of pregnancy with no consequences.

Or with deciding that a woman is marriage material for simply going to pilates, cooking for you every day, and doing your laundry.

What about looking at a woman who is confident and joyful in the clothes, the choices, and the decor that makes her heart sing and picking it apart because how dare she be so in touch with her little self and believe her life is worth intentionally creating?

And there is something very, very wrong when other women use their proximity or their relationship with other women to sabotage the joyful and intentional woman who has something of value.

The wedding debacle that hit the internet this week is about a talented Black makeup artist and a fabulous Black bride. This should have been a time of joy, celebration, and the end.

Instead what unfolded was a weird and initially confusing series of events in which a tearful make-up artist made several viral videos about how this bride and her new husband gave her a bad experience and kicked her out of their wedding harshly.

She recounted how she had been having such a great time and felt so close to everyone there. She revealed how awful that morning was as her boyfriend had just dumped her. She showed how cool everyone was with her making TikToks and capturing every detail of the wedding. And then suddenly, the groom was harsh with her and made her leave! She was stunned to be treated this way!

Theories flew around but as more context and footage circulated the corner of the internet that was fixated on this drama, something strange emerged.

At first, there was discussion about how yes, it is polite for vendors to get a plate or be provided with food and they are rarely ushered out harshly from a venue.

But alas, that is not what happened. This wedding was supposed to be unplugged. No cameras but the hired photography team. The make-up artist was expected to do the make-up, demurely get some food, and go home. Instead, this makeup artist who was struggling emotionally about her relationship loss, made it everyone else’s problem.

After overstepping and filming everything, being in a ton of photos she wasn’t supposed to be in, accompanying the bridal party of friends to places she had no business being at, redirecting and shushing the bridal party’s compliments of the bride, forcing the couple to do TikToks they didn’t ask for, and over staying her welcome, she had a meltdown of tears.

Instead of realizing she was out of line and had maybe missed several memos, she decided to make it the bride’s problem. Yes, the fabulous sister who had paid for this day, set aside time for her union and was ready for a celebration. This makeup artists dared to approach the bride for complaints and comfort. And when she didn’t get the answer that she wanted she blasted the bride’s private photos and videos all over the internet and did a multi-part series.

This wedding is now among many things, a meme of drama and has dragged hundreds of thousands of social media users into the mix. It has revealed details about this couple and the wedding that they never wanted out there.

At first, with fewer details, I thought this bride simply had the misfortune of hiring a Michael Scott type, a good-hearted person with no self-awareness.

But that kind of person, upon getting buffed as the aunties would say, high tails it out and go silent when they realize they have made a mistake.

If this was the case of someone being neurally atypical, they would hear the harsh feedback and go wow I missed the sign! Let me just leave and be done with it.

I mentioned online I have a different theory. Something similar to what many of you who have done the work to live the lives you want have noticed. Some people have given up on better for themselves and are more than happy to come around to the good you have to gawk at or admire it. And then the gap of self-worth between what they have and what you believe you deserve hurts.

Now we’ve only spent this entire dispatch talking about the people that openly criticize it or you.

But in this case we had a supposed fan! A supporter! A fellow sister! What is happening here? I suspect that this artist saw something she wanted, something she valued, and something precious that another woman had and decided to make it about her feelings and pain. It was inappropriate and wrong to pull the bride aside at the reception for the couple and ask the bride to manage her emotions. It was wrong to take this beautiful wedding and turn it into a social media controversy to garner sympathy and attention. It was wrong to take someone’s wedding and make it about your breakup!

Unfortunately, there is much quantified, programmed racism in dating in the USA. We’ve been looking at this with Professor Apryl Williams research in Not My Type. So what can happen is this scarcity idea yet again. There are only so many weddings to go around! Only so many good men who have worked on themselves!

And here is the warning for all of us no matter WHAT it is we want: Watch out for the people who decide the problem isn’t sexism, racism, classism, or whatever form of social hierarchy that hoards something good but that the problem is you!

You cannot fix that in your relationships. You cannot be responsible for this lazy cop-out. You cannot trust this person to tell you the correct time, to protect you, to care about what you have worked hard for, or to respect your relationships with others. Someone who has decided to self-sabotage has no problem doing the same to you.

This matters to me because as one auntie once said “Sometimes the devil clocked out a long time ago”. We have done so much in terms of civil rights to advance our communities and selves to a place where we say our Black lives or our female lives matter. And then we stay in relationships to comfort people who do not feel the same about themselves or us. The laws that prevented black housewives are gone, but the attitude lives on in people who are happy to finish the job.

It matters that we are in this moment in America history where even as we deal with the deadly effects of police lynchings, mass incarceration, and war politics that there are people in our community who are alive and well. It matters to me to see a young Black girl get to play the cello and pick out a snack in a comfortable home. It matters that a young teenager has the right to pursue medicine or motherhood or both. We cannot take these things for granted and we must guard them from inside or outside beliefs that would derail them.

It might sound silly, but I find it a serious thing when a friend tries to manipulate me into agreeing to bring a small suitcase on a trip. It is serious when I am asked to agree to “not bring dress up clothes because it’s just a beach party.” Because yes, while it is a subtle way to get me to not bring the eye-catching heels and dresses like I did last time, it’s not about the clothes. It’s about deciding that what makes me comfortable and joyful is not valued. It’s selfishly deciding that her discomfort with me is my problem.

Do you know who else doesn’t value those things? People in white hoods and people who hate other humans. And while hating on a home-making Black woman with a nice bag or a Black lawyer who is childfree and goes to Greece twice a year isn’t the same thing as a lynching, it exists on the continuum of disregard and disrespect.

The mantra TRUST NO BITCH TRUST NO NIGGA isn’t saying you can’t love someone or be in relationship with them. It means to me that you don’t burden every friend you have with the weight of full trust they haven’t earned. We can be vulnerable and open with people through mutual shared respect over time. I love lots of people, and I have learned you don’t put them in position where their unhealed bits have a massive opportunity to detonate in the middle of your life. That is a whole other essay.

What I need to communicate now (if I was a better writer this would have been shorter) is that this is personal civil rights campaign right in your own life. It’s a practical theory of respecting yourself to the point where you don’t cede the ground of your own life because it doesn’t fit the confines of the people closet to you.

The people before us did not sacrifice their beaten in heads and lives for us to so easily give up the lives that we are called to. To content ourselves with relationships or interactions where firm boundaries need to be drawn. You are not a good martyr for accepting the first lie White Supremacy or sexism tried to sell you or what its ambassadors under the guise of relationship want you to believe.

That make-artist needed to have been told from the get that she was out of line and needed to grab a plate and go. There are friends you need to look at and say no with zero explanation when they ask you to do ridiculous things. There are third dates you need to cancel the second you feel something is off and a boundary has been pushed. There are men you need to fire as clients from your unofficial man-coaching business.

This is going to sound crazy, but we do live in a universe with up quarks, down quarks, black holes, and Moo Deng the pygmy hippo so stay with me for a second through my religious reconversion: On my last day at the beach house I woke up - not a drop of anything but water in my system- with this very clear heavy weight on my chest that I was deeply, utterly loved and valued by God degree-less, with a broken brain, and all. This was very strange because I had left my faith happily and with a stink eye. I had zero desire to believe in a story that said I belonged to something bigger than me, that I had come from something bigger than all the pain and beauty on earth, and that I would return to something bigger than me one day. All I knew was that weird day I was changed by some kind of grace that led me down a long hard road of resurrection. I was open to the healing of self-compassion, to healing my brain, to loosening my grip on external validation. I didn’t feel the same need to hustle to measure up to imperialistic values or jump back into the church with the same song and dance of trying not to burn or be cast out in. I was made for the center of God’s love, and I would spend my time honoring that in me and other people. And I would let the truth that I was loved burn off the lesser, baser coping mechanisms. I found my love of history and politics invigorated with the hope that there are better stories for us. I find in American history countless ways of coping and hoarding that killed us and the ways people like Harriet Tubman fought back against with the conviction that their creator was bigger than a man with a gun and that one day people like you and me would be freer.

There is no way what I told you here today is the full story or all the details or the last word. But it is my little attempt to take two wild and strange events of note and think about what it offers us. What it invites us to and the way our jealousy or emotions are signs to be attended to and processed, not stuffed down so they erupt in ways destructive to ourselves and others.

You matter. What you want, like, dream of matters. I hope in all the media I make, you feel the courage to date, love, live, buy, save, give away, move, dance, hope, and study like you know it does. And if you are struggling to believe that right now, I want you to know I believe it for you and I know the God who made every one of us does too. In my faith tradition, I know if it didn’t we’d all be indistinct blobs of soul floating around. But we aren’t. I feel comfortable telling you about my beliefs here because there are a lot of stories out there that people believe in about who we are and what we are here for and who matters and who doesn’t. But this story, where you and your life matter and the ways we self-destruct don’t have to have the final word? That out of the death of one thing something more just and merciful amongst ourselves and other could grow? That is a story, as Rachel Held Evans once said, I am willing to be wrong about. But that is for another day. I’ll see you next week.

P.S. If you know where TRUST NO BITCH, TRUST NO NIGGA originated, pray tell. I never got to ask her.

Four African American women seated at Atlanta University, Georgia (circa 1899-1900) by Thomas Askew. Courtesy Library of Congress.