A Sea of Voices I Have Called My Own

In between cultures and versions of me

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“People like you,” a man once told me, “are in danger of extinction.”

What a line. On my first date in what felt like half a century, I showed up as what I have been taught is the most palatable version of myself. The sweet, docile, eager-to-please one.

When it is required of me, I wear demurity as a second skin, and just like shapewear, it folds me into a more socially appropriate form, allowing me to occupy as much space as the world believes Brown women should take up…which is none at all.

But at home, while the warmth of my body is still living in my recently shedded nylons, I gleefully crumple demurity into a ball and throw it in the washer along with all the other things that I only wear outside of the house.

And then, finally, I begin to talk like myself again.

My “work voice,” which also makes appearances in several other locations, wasn’t actually born in the workplace at all. It began to take shape before I was even old enough for most under-the-table jobs.

“You sound like a chain smoker,” my father guffawed. “Like you smoke six packs a day.”

I created a second voice for myself in my teen years after learning that the pitch and…