Black Women Thrive: Interview with Teacher and Freelance Writer Carla Bruce-Eddings

English teacher and freelance writer
Carla Bruce-Eddings.

According to the current social constructs of America, being an introverted Black woman is simply a contradiction. Silent introspection, social anxiety, and and general shyness are attributes not within the borders of the canvas which illustrates the average Black woman. Instead, many—including Black women and men—use images of the stereotypical Black female to gauge the "normalcy" of her realistic counterparts. 

As English teacher and freelance writer Carla Bruce-Eddings knows too well, the farther you are from the stereotype, the harder it is to connect with many of those in the Black community.

"I've definitely gotten the 'you're not like other [B]lack girls' thing multiple times. It was meant as a compliment, and I took it as one because that was the world I lived in...Respectability was the name of the game."

Bruce-Eddings' shyness manifested itself when she was a child. She was made to attend only private Christian schools until college although she pleaded with her parents to let her go to public schools; she was hyperaware of her presence as the one of the only Black students in many of her classes. Similarly, she found it difficult to connect with others in the majority-Black church her family regularly attended since she was used to being "in majority white settings" and found small talk to be not unlike a root canal.

"My parents would want to stay and chat it up with every...person in the building and it was the worst...it wouldn't have been as interminable if they had just let me sit in the car and read my book while they talked. But they dragged me from conversation to conversation so I could be asked the same questions, forced to smile and respond and be 'nice'."

Simply put, she found it hard to play the silent social games created to make conversations go smoothly, "For me, it was literally 'talk to people, and smile more often than you scowl'."

Her difficulties connecting with fellow members of the Black community continued when she entered college at Rutgers University. As a large, public university, Rutgers has several clubs and organizations geared toward the wide array of minority students. Nevertheless, due to her upbringing outside typical African American culture, Bruce-Eddings felt excluded from her Black peers. She didn't have the same mannerisms or points of reference as they did; she felt like an interloper. 

"I was distinctly aware that there was a coolness factor and sort of ease that I lacked...this feeling was compounded when I got to college...and tried to assimilate into various groups of [B]lack people. It just never really worked."

Black Women Thrive: Interview with Freelance Writer Dara Tafakari

Freelance writer Dara Tafakari.

Imagine ditching the structured nature of the corporate world in order to blog and write freelance full time in the midst of supporting your husband's journey toward earning a Ph.D. and moving cross country. Sounds pretty hectic, right? Now, add being a mother of a three-year-old while expecting a second child to the mix! It's a lot to juggle at once, but freelance writer Dara Tafakari is currently handling these events rather gracefully.

"I'm somewhat unable to post publicly because [of] relocation, pregnancy [etc.]...But I can still write without posting."

Tafakari also handles the occasional confusion regarding the pronunciation (Tah-fuh-kah-ree) and origins of her last name quite well. Interestingly, Tafakari was born into a Pan African Christian community in Houston which stressed the assimilation of various African cultures into daily life. Therefore, members created and adopted African names and raised their children as a community rather than in rigid family unit structures.

"The Pan African Orthodox Christian Church was started in the 1960s by Rev. Albert B. Cleage in Detroit, very much a response to the Civil Right Movement[,] what he perceived as a wrongheaded approach to organizing the Black community...[The community] sought to live communally and share goods, services, wealth, and child rearing amongst themselves."

The church still exists in cities like Detroit, Atlanta, and Houston. Several community members changed their names and gave their children names from African tribes or languages. While her unique beginnings were harmless, Tafakari left the community at around age two after her parents split and her mother joined the army.  At the age of five, Dara’s mother changed her name from "Tafakari Tumaini" to "Dara Tafakari" as a tangible steps toward assimilating back into mainstream American culture.

Tafakari's experiences growing up give her an interesting vantage point regarding current debates about whether African Americans can appropriate African cultures. She feels African Americans have a strong desire to connect with their roots; however, they have the responsibility to learn about the different cultures across the continent.

"As an African American, I do not know much about my roots or my ancestry beyond maybe two generations. There's a very real pain from that, especially since I understand the violence underscoring this separation. Accordingly, I understand acts of reclamation from other Black Americans. I also think there is a way that the African Diaspora...can educate and share cultures, because there is so much we already do have in common that has been passed down, despite colonialist and white supremacist efforts to prevent that."