You Got Anything Stronger?

by Gabrielle Union

  “Go, go, go!” I yelled and she was in, doing her signature knee lifts, elbows out. Even if this crowd couldn’t tell Kid from Play, they were shocked by the out-of-nowhere precision of her moves. This was a moment, and all these people might be here to witness it, but this DJ was playing this music for us.

  “Beat that,” I yelled. But then the whole band and Bruno did the moves right back to her! They could mirror her and add in Kid ’n Play’s parts. I raised a fist and yelled, “Foiled!”

  As the song ended, Rufus and Chaka’s “Ain’t Nobody” came on, and I saw Jenae’s hand hit the air. I reached out to grab it. “Your turn,” I told her. Bruno’s crew stepped back as Jenae took the floor. It felt transcendent, watching her have her moment, with even the crew cheering her on. As Chaka says, “Now we’re flyin’ through the stars, I hope this night will last forever.” She was seen, not in reflected glory, but in her own light.

  We continued this way—through Guy’s “Groove Me” and Janet’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately”—until finally we were back to me and Bruno, nose to nose and dripping sweat. This match of my joy and his incredible talent.

  With my eyes, I told Bruno, I respect you, but I am trying to take this crown tonight. I need the fucking win.

  And his eyes said, Bitch, right back at you. On this night, my night, I want the fucking win.

  We kept battling, and what finally won that night was exhaustion. Exhaustion and mutual respect. Bruno and I hugged like prizefighters trying to stay up, and raised each other’s hands in a shared victory. The crowd cheered for both of us.

  There was no need to declare a winner because we’d all become friends on the dance floor. Our crew was theirs, and their crew was ours. Everyone in that room knew they were going to be one of the biggest bands in the world, and Bruno one of the brightest stars.

  It has to be said: when it gets to the late hour, when it’s time to couple up, that’s when Black women go out of style. But this crew said these women, right here, are the baddest, dopest prizes in here. Bruno offered to share the space, in an equal way, with Black women, and that means seeing us shine. Not “allowing” it—witnessing it. In the dance battle, the feeling was I see you, I celebrate you, and I challenge you to be even greater. The joy of connection in spirit that happens when you welcome in Black women—and don’t relegate us to holding up the wall—that joy will change your life. It can change the trajectory of a country. We can literally do anything.

  Strangers hugged us—real hugs, not Hollywood elbow-clutch hugs—or gave us high-fives as we left to pile into our SUV. We weren’t even on the road before we were recounting key moments. “And you . . . you with that move! Where the hell did you learn that?”

  There are moments you miss out on because you think, I could stay home. All parties are the same. No. No, they’re fucking not. Because if you missed this party, you missed it.

  Then there was a stillness in the car, all of us just breathing.

  “We were exalted,” I said. “Exalted.”

  We. I had been so intent on helping Jenae step out from her husband’s shadow. But the reason I knew what that felt like was because I was right there with her, standing by a six-foot-something Heatle blocking out the sun. Physician, heal thyself.

  I had out my hand for Jenae to high-five. The men in our lives didn’t make us amazing, or valid; we are rock stars because we are Black women who survived and thrived in the world. And that night, some people recognized that. Even if they hadn’t, we could hold each other in regard. Tag ourselves in when we need to shine.

  The next morning, I would feel every move I’d made, like I’d done Leg Day for a week. My neck would hurt so much from that heavy hair tossing, I’d be convinced my weave gave me whiplash.

  But for that night, we were golden.

  12

  Power in Numbers

  A girlfriend texted a distress call. For the last year, she had been talking about putting together a film. She did this with such regularity that in the group chat one of us usually just asked, “How’s your movie?” because it was all she wanted to talk about anyway.

  There was always an update: bringing in another major player, asking what we thought of ideas for casting actors. She was considering big names, and they came in because of her reputation and her enthusiasm for the project. My friend saw that each got their deal done for the film, as she waited to get hers done at the end. She figured she’d get all the ducks in a row first, and then she’d get herself paid. But when it came time to get her deal done, the powers that be tried to offer her way less than one of the newcomers hired to play a supporting role.

  “Wait, hold on,” she said. “I brought her on. This is my thing. How am I getting fucked?”

  At first, they said she should take less if she believed in the project. Wasn’t seeing her passion project realized more important to her than a paycheck? She was not born yesterday, so she dismissed that argument.

  Ah, but then they said it was exactly because she was not born yesterday that they had to offer her less. She was older, they said, not some young whippersnapper. It should be understood that she was lucky to work. Never mind that she had an actual track record of opening movies, while the person getting more money had never opened a single one. But this is, of course, bigger than roles or track record. Women are taught to devalue themselves as they age. An accumulation of years, of real experience, triggers some economic law of diminishing returns. Why invest in us?

  “Nope,” my girlfriend said. “I know what I’m worth. I’m gonna go ahead and pass.”

  She walked away from this dream project she nurtured into existence. And the first thing she did was let me, and the other girlfriends who would be next on their casting list, know what was up.

  “What is your worth on this?” I asked. “If they hit me, which you know they will, what’s the amount that you feel you should have?”

  She gave me that number.

  “Bet,” I wrote back.

  So, of course, here they came. “We’ve got this great opportunity,” they said. They went all through the stars and moon that my friend had hung for this project, not mentioning her once. “You would be perfect for this role. You are exactly who we envision. A Gabrielle Union. The Gabrielle Union.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “This is what I need.” I gave my friend’s number.

  They were speechless. Then they offered me even less than what they said they would pay her. Hundreds of thousands of dollars less.

  So, now I was pissed.

  “Well, first off, this is my friend’s movie,” I said. “What happened there?”

  “Oh,” they said, seeming surprised that Black women in the industry talk to each other, let alone about money. “We couldn’t make a deal.”

  “Oh,” I said, matching their cadence. “Why couldn’t you make a deal?”

  They came up with some nonsensical reason, vague and diaphanous. Chiffon draped over bullshit. I just wanted to know how diabolical they would be in coming up with half-truths, since I knew the real reason. Hollywood deals are like sex. People will lie “I love you” to get the deal done.

  I passed, and immediately texted my girlfriend to tell her. “I was who they envisioned. LOL.”

  We agreed on who would be the next call on the list. And then the person after that, and the person after that. We were right every time. Mind you, the number they offered got lower and lower as they went down the list, but our self-worth did not. We each asked for the same price, banding together in solidarity to not present them with the cheaper option. To not be the person used to screw over somebody that is deserving of what they’re asking for.

  The longer it took, the more they risked losing the other girl, the actress who had gotten the bigger check. Finally, when the younger ingenue realized my girlfriend was out, she said, “I’m not gonna do this without the person that brought me to the dance.”

  They had to step up, and they ended up paying my friend more than w
hat she initially asked for. Sometimes using your position of privilege isn’t to ensure your paycheck, it’s to ensure the next person’s paycheck. And to make sure they are treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve. You have that power if you choose to use that power. That’s why it’s so important that women talk about what we make and be open about our experiences in the workplace. Knowing what other people make and why is not only about doing better for yourself, but to make sure that people who are really doing the work and putting in the extra effort are being rewarded, and not just used as mules.

  And maybe, for a lot of us on that list, it was practice. Getting over our fear of being perceived as the uppity Negro or the person that asks for their actual worth as opposed to being fine with crumbs as long as they keep coming. At what point do you get to that space of taking a chance on yourself?

  The reality is it’s only been relatively recently that I’ve come to this understanding. It’s hard to admit that for a very long time, I didn’t really understand my value at all, not in a financial sense or even on a spiritual or emotional level. I had to ask myself what I ask you now: What’s your worth versus what you take? And why?

  Sometimes the why is a ratio of fear and need, and I get that. When you’re head of a household, you don’t always feel like you’re in a position to bet on yourself. You know that anything can happen, so you take what you’re offered without any negotiation. There have been times in my career—fine, many times—where I took an opportunity out of a fear of never working again. When I was just getting started I would see people who used to be famous. The girl group member working the register at Target. The onetime sitcom regular taking my order at California Pizza Kitchen. The former sitcom star wearing the same sweats to the dog park every day. Each was a terrifying memento mori: “What you are, I was; what I am, you will be.”

  When I started really moving around Hollywood, and working consistently, I wondered why people didn’t plan for the “never again.” I lived in terror that I wouldn’t know when the “never again” was coming until the phone stopped ringing. “Last call, already?”

  But what happens when you only think of that? How do you rob yourself of really reaping the benefits of everything you bring to the table, the piles of cash and time you gave a company, or even a family? Because even when dealing with people you are friendly with, there can be a refusal to share the wealth. The people who wave and blow kisses to you while you’re in the trenches will claim your victory and take the spoils of your success as theirs. You’re playing a part in building their wealth or the profits of a company; they are at the dance and don’t want to pay the person who got them there. They want to profit from an economy, as a Black female producer I know once told me, “that was not built for us, but was built by us.”

  Certainly, a lot of people prey on the most marginalized. They take advantage of the fact that Black and brown people often have not had the resources of therapy and also are working in spaces where very few people look like them. Treated like the magical Negro—or magical marginalized—they might choose to make you a face of the company without giving you the support needed. Post a photo of you on their socials and hashtag it #blackgirlmagic. It’s a proven profit-winner: use your narrative for PR or to check a box, and then exploit the inevitable impostor syndrome that results. Because we know it’s not magic, it’s work. And we will work three times as hard to live up to the expectation that hashtag brings, not just because we were raised knowing the lengths we will have to go in order to be taken seriously professionally, but also because there’s usually somebody who’s willing to step in right behind you and take less. Or gladly be abused and have their “magic” used.

  My friend was supposed to accept crumbs, because they already had that list in mind of others they thought would gladly take her spot for even less. But once you know your value you won’t want to be complicit in that. Success will naturally have to look different for you then, but if we give ourselves time away from the fear that’s been instilled in us, we have space to decide what our true success really is.

  For me, success is now about change. I need to be able to look around at others so I can be sure everyone has something to eat on their plate. It’s no longer enough to just stare down at my own tray, so overflowing with “abundance” that I’m never going to even have a chance to eat. It used to be, but that shit don’t taste good anymore. I lost my appetite.

  13

  Thanksgiving

  “It’s amazing, right?”

  My mother didn’t answer me, just leaned in closer to examine the oil painting in my friend’s foyer. I’d asked her to stop by my friend Kyle’s house, but this tour of his home was the real reason I had invited her. I knew my mother, the woman who’d taken me to so many museums as a kid, would love his art collection.

  It was just the two of us, with Kyle outside hosting a barbecue for all of his friends in the seventy-degree weather of late-November Arizona. This was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2008, and my mom and I were both visiting Phoenix. When Kyle first greeted her, he apologized for the chill, but in my mother’s Omaha the day had started ten degrees below freezing.

  I was in town from L.A. to spend the holiday with my father, who had moved to the area after divorcing my mother fifteen years before. My little sister Tracy had moved to be near him, and my mother was doing what many divorced parents of adult children do: seizing an unobtrusive opportunity to see their kids together. My parents were still not in a place where they could share a holiday, though that would come. For now, we still divvied up our calendars according to who had called dibs years before. My father and my stepmother, who love gatherings, chose Thanksgiving. By the time I sat to eat turkey the next day, my mother would be back to her life and family in Omaha, but this Wednesday belonged to us.

  We continued through the quiet mansion, and every turn revealed more of the collection. It was mostly religious iconography—tempera and gold representations of Jesus next to huge oil paintings of saints in biblical settings. Kyle shared my mother’s deep love and appreciation for Catholic art, and was able to afford this house and everything in it because of his previous career in adult entertainment. It’s not something he disavowed, it’s just that he’s a businessman and that was an early venture.

  This private show of the work was sort of my gift to her out here in this dry, flat landscape my father had claimed, an unexpected desert outpost of the culture and faith she loves. She visited with the paintings like friends, murmuring the names of the saints depicted. “Saint Dominic,” she said. “Oh, the Nativity of Mary. How nice.”

  “How do you know that baby is Mary?” I asked.

  She leaned in closer. “Well, that’s Saint Anne holding her.” She paused when I said nothing. “Her mother. And there’s usually a bit of blue in the painting. Mary’s color.”

  Kyle and my mom were two Catholic kids who grew up going to Mass. These were family photos to them. I knew he had religious artifacts and relics in his trophy room, so I led her there.

  “Oh my gosh,” she said. There were shelves of awards, plus signed sports memorabilia under glass. So much so that she might have assumed Kyle was an athlete. “Well, whatever he does, he’s got to be really good at it. He’s got a lot of trophies.”

  “Yeah,” I said, as she leaned in to read the inscription at the bottom of one large crystal trophy. I saw her eyes widen, and she turned to look at me.

  I read it silently over her shoulder. “Best Couples Sex Scene.”

  “Oh,” I said, offhand. “Kyle was a porn titan.”

  “Well,” she said. “I like his taste in art, and I’m glad he does well for himself.” She continued to look at the art, no judgment in her voice as she said quietly, “All your friends always do so well for themselves.”

  * * *

  If my mother raised me to not judge people, my father and I are similar in that we are gatherers of people. If he is hosting, it’s come one, come all. He encouraged m
e to bring as many people as possible to Thanksgiving at his home, so of course I invited Kyle and all of his friends. In addition to a few girlfriends, I also invited a crew of guys from Lafayette, Louisiana, my girlfriends and I had met one night hanging in Las Vegas. Like I said, I am a collector of people.

  I’d also invited my newish boyfriend, Dwyane, who was in town to play against the Phoenix Suns and do a paid club appearance Thanksgiving night. Did I mention that he was flying his mother Mama Wade and his older sister Tragil from Chicago to come, too? Mama Wade is a formidable figure, having turned her life around from being an absentee mother dealing with drug addiction, to becoming a pastor.

  Come one, come all.

  On Thanksgiving Day, my job was to bring the alcohol. My stepmother spends days, if not weeks, preparing and cooking for Thanksgiving, so her kitchen was her fiefdom. But booze I could do.

  So, picture Dwyane Wade, a former porn titan, and all of his friends and me in Safeway at noon on Thanksgiving Day. We had to be at my dad’s by one o’clock. Black people eat Thanksgiving dinner mad early.

  This was when Dwyane was Sober Sally, so he was noncommittal on what we should get. He was in his mid-twenties, still figuring out his relationship with alcohol after growing up surrounded by addiction and its consequences. He looked at drinking as a risk that led to being out of control, and when we were out in Miami he saw me as a walking PSA for sober living. After a few drinks I would cuss out his friends for their freeloading, and he used to say he needed to curb my drinking “for your own good” when it was really to spare his friends’ feelings.

  “When you’re out with me, you get two drinks, max,” he said at the beginning of one night. So “Two Drinks Max” became my nickname for Dwyane among my girlfriends, who would sneak me drinks under the table.

  Our shopping cart was full of wine, beer, tequila, Hennessey, vodka—a smorgasbord of drunkenness—but I thought we still needed something festive. “What would be good?” I said aloud, twirling slightly to scan the store. And like a beacon of yellow, there it was: a display of limoncello, bright and inviting. So harmless in its lemony vibrancy.