Smart Black Girls Shouldn't Have Babies
Smart Black Girls Shouldn't Have Babies is complete and currently seeking literary representation for traditional publication.
For inquiries, contact amanda@amandagrihm.com or visit the Contact page.
“He caught my glance and grinned. ‘Great lighting in that photo shoot. Made your features sharp. Like a White girl’s. Ever thought about a skin peel?’
“My stomach turned. My spine straightened. ‘Skin peel! What the—’ I stopped myself before exploding. And in that moment, I understood him. He was a believer—a disciple of the Willie Lynch doctrine—saluting an imaginary White flag every day of his miserable Black life.
“Maybe he didn’t even know the doctrine was a fabrication, passed off as a 1712 slave owner’s speech—falsified history repackaged as a strategic plan.
“A lie, yes—but one of the most enduring and effective lies ever told. It didn’t have to be real to work. It laid out a blueprint for domination through division—by age, gender, and most dangerously, skin tone. That lie pitted light against dark, old against young, and field workers against house servants.
“It made us work against each other like we were at war. Black people were conditioned to hurt each other in service of white supremacy—beating, punishing, and even killing to maintain a system that hated us all the same.
“We kept each other in line so they didn’t have to. We erased each other for stepping out of place—for being too light, too dark, too bold, too smart, too strong, too weak, too much, or not enough. We internalized their fear and turned it into our marching orders.
“That lie spread through every non-White community in the world. Entire cultures shaped by someone else’s standard. Entire generations trained to bleach themselves invisible.
“The so-called Willie Lynch letter became prophecy. It trained generations to treat skin like currency; where appearance trumped ability. Never mind that skin couldn’t carry a bale of cotton, solve a crisis, teach, lead, or love. All it had to do was look the part—pale enough to be perceived as pure, innocent; dark enough to be punished as dangerous, dirty.
“That was his religion. And as long as he wasn’t White, he was second-class by design—damaged goods.
“The dilemma was that Dr. Hayes was supposed to be exceptional, recommended by leaders in their fields. He didn’t help or heal me. I wasn’t a patient—I was a problem. My confidence offended him. He examined every part of me, as if breaking me down would justify the harm he had inflicted on me.
“I enraged him. ‘You think money and connections are going to fill that empty hole in you? You grew up like a fairytale princess. That’s given you advantages you really didn’t earn. And now you’re on the cover of a prestigious magazine. You think being seen is going to make you feel whole?’ His voice dripped with venom.
“‘Don’t let the glamour fool you. You’re still a Black girl. There’s no power in Black. That makes you disposable. A placeholder.’
“I didn’t react physically, but something in me snapped. He didn’t know a damn thing about me. He didn’t know about the years I spent in foster care. That the atrocities I faced there shaped everything I became.
“He didn’t know about the homes where sleeping on the floor was safer than sleeping in a bed at four or five years old. He thought I was just a spoiled little heiress playing pretend. He didn’t know that water forced up your nose was the punishment for not solving math and science problems on the first try—no matter how complex. Being beaten because you cried was the cure for not crying when you were beaten. Or that imagining yourself dead at four and five years old, instead of being molested, was the only way to survive. He didn’t know I had already survived hell and high water just to sit across from him.
“I drowned several times on my way to becoming who I am. And he’s right—money can be taken. But my knowledge, my scars I’ve earned, the stripes I wear… those are mine. I earned every one of them. Every scar. Every win. Every headline. That’s what he couldn’t stand—that I made it through the maze and I’m the one who solved the puzzle.
“I looked at him, and I let the silence speak for a long moment. I wanted him to feel it. The depth of his ignorance. The smallness of his power. The enormity of his envy. I wasn’t going to waste truth on a man too broken to hold it. And I wasn’t there to teach him.
“I wanted to hurt him. Instead, I smiled. Not the kind that comforts. The kind that exposes. The kind that says: I see you.
“My reply was strong and it stung him.
‘You don’t know me, Dr. Hayes. I’m your patient. We don’t run in the same circles. Not even the same stratosphere. So be careful how you speak to me.
“‘My Blackness didn’t victimize me. In many ways it made me better than you and all those other people in the world who want to pin their problems on it.
“‘My Blackness doesn’t think, create, move, or act for me. It is one small part of what I am. I am a Black woman.’
“He recoiled—like my words struck something raw. But he recovered fast. Men like him don’t break. They shape-shift.
“‘You know, Hether,’ his voice was icy and clinical, ‘you can’t have everything without losing something along the way.’
“That’s when I saw him clearly. This wasn’t about my career, my power, or my success. It was about his failures—his regrets, his bitterness.
“I leaned in, my voice as cold and sharp as my stare. ‘I’m not like you.’
“For a moment, he looked at me like he couldn’t decide whether to be angry or impressed. In the end, he chose angry.
“He snapped. ‘One day you’ll see—it’s not so simple.’
“But I knew it was simple. I was broken—but not like him. ‘You’ll figure it out,’ I said, calm and steady. ‘But I’m not here to fix you.’
“And then, his earlier comment came back to me—something about me reminding him of his mother.
“I met his eyes with a stare that cut through him. ‘I’m not your mother. I’m not the one who broke you.’
“I stood. And with each step toward the door, I left him—and his projections—behind.”