You Got Anything Stronger?

by Gabrielle Union

  “Wait,” she said, grabbing her phone to turn on its flashlight. “This.”

  She shone the light on the walls, and it was the jump scare of horror movies. The walls were covered in Jim Crow memorabilia. White-eyed Black mammies and jockeys stared back at us, a picture of a Black baby sucking a bottle that said “INK.” A drawing of a little Black child devouring fruit under the words DIXIE BOY. Everywhere you looked a new degradation, all of it Americana.

  “They had to import their racism,” I said.

  “Jesus,” Malika said, taking pictures. She lowered her phone, and the light briefly fell on a woman entering the hallway. We jumped, and the woman practically hissed.

  “We have to go,” I said. “We have to fucking go.”

  Malika pointed to the bathroom door. “Somebody was real mad I was in there,” she said. “I know they called me a nigger.”

  “Was it like ‘blah blah blah nigger’ or did they say ‘nigger’ in Croatian?” I asked, but did not wait for the answer. In any language, you know when you’re called a nigger. We went to go back to our spot by the door so Larry would find us, but there were more people now, taking up that space. They had the same scowl, looking us up and down as we hugged the wall near the door.

  Here came Larry, expertly carrying five bottles. “Here’s your beers,” he said, his voice clipped. “Let’s drink and let’s just go.”

  Malika was already holding up her phone to show him the pictures. “Larry, look at this shit,” I said. His eyes narrowed, and he pulled his head back. “Here?” he asked.

  As our own eyes adjusted, we realized it wasn’t just the hallway. The whole place was covered in racist decorations, like trophies of past kills. And we could see our fellow patrons seeing us seeing that. As we pointed, they popped wry grins, like, “Yup. And?”

  “Stay behind me,” Larry said to us, quietly, trying to sound casual as he directed us outside the bar to one of the picnic tables. The alleyway now seemed even more narrow, and there were people standing around.

  “We should go,” said Chelsea.

  “They’re not gonna run us out of here,” said Larry, placing our drinks on the table. His voice was measured but direct. This was the Larry of the west side of Chicago, who ended fights he didn’t ask for, and who had watched the older sister he idolized, who was trans, have to do the same every day of her life. “We’re not gonna run. Let’s gather ourselves. We’re gonna finish our drinks, and then we’re gonna leave.”

  I was scared. “Go ahead,” Larry said, looking right at me. “Finish your drink.” But he wasn’t drinking. He held his bottle tight by the neck, ready to draw as he turned to watch the people watching us. There was a group of large men with shaved heads, leering at us. They had a tone of playful murder in their eyes, making a game of trying to scare us. When that didn’t get the effect they wanted, they upped the ante. Two of the men made a slow show of lifting their sleeves to display tattoos of swastikas.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  At that, two of them started to get up.

  “Okay,” Larry said, still casual. “On second thought, fuck that.”

  Glass shattered. In one fell swoop, Larry broke the bottle against the wall. Now they were all up.

  “Walk down the hill,” Larry quietly commanded us, staring straight ahead. “Don’t look at anybody, don’t say shit.”

  We did as we were told. As he held these men at bay with the bottle, he walked backward. “Don’t run,” he said. “Just keep walking.” Thomas, Chelsea, and Malika were in front of me, and kept turning back to look. They were crying. Seeing that, my own terror mixed with a confused rage. Was it just fun for these people to menace us? Or was it not enough that they had intimidated us into leaving? Maybe they really did want to hurt us.

  Going down the alley to the square, I saw why Larry didn’t want us to run. The corridor was a gauntlet of people in alcoves. Anyone of them could stop us, grab at us, and then what? What would these men do to us? I pressed my elbows to my sides.

  I could see the square. I felt like we had a chance if we made it out of the alley to the square. As we got closer, I saw a cop in the distance. He wasn’t looking our way. His arms were crossed. We were getting closer. He would have to do something, right? He could—

  He turned. Sneered, and glanced at the men behind us.

  Then he looked away.

  King’s Landing was now a ghost town. The skinheads were shouting at us. I could see the lights of our hotel in the distance above us. I pointed, barely able to talk, and we moved in that direction. My mind went to Kaavia James, who had just started to crawl. I’d been afraid she’d become an expert while I was gone. I wanted to see that.

  We fled through the gate of King’s Landing and started up the hill to the hotel. I was in a full sweat. We were out of breath, but the skinheads had stopped because they got what they wanted: us gone.

  We didn’t utter a word to each other, all of us numb and in shock.

  For most of my life, I have gamed out worst-case scenarios with if-this, then-this precision. Like, “If I end up in a bar that I thought was a gay bar, but it’s full of Nazis who have decorated the place in Jim Crow memorabilia . . . then I know what I’d do: I’d kick everybody’s ass.”

  The truth is harder. No, you’re outnumbered. And you’re not trying to die in a fucking Croatian bar in King’s fucking Landing.

  We entered the hotel and said nothing to the front desk. Just slinked in, our tails between our legs. I caught us in a mirror, and we looked like we’d lost a fight, even though they didn’t get a punch in.

  I didn’t want to be alone and neither did the others. We all hung out in my room, too wired to sleep. Larry remained rigid, his adrenaline ebbing slowly. I curled my body into a chair, making myself as small as possible.

  I got out my phone to research Croatia, and spent the night going down a rabbit hole learning about the country and its immigration policies. Because when you are confronted with that kind of perceived threat of violence, it plays with your head. You wonder what you might have done to incite it, when really, you just existed in a public space that did not want you. In 2019, there’d been a spike in nationalistic hate crimes in Croatia, one of the whitest countries in the world with Croats making up more than 90 percent of the population, and Serbs being its largest “minority.” That night I read countless accounts of Black travelers horrified by racism in Croatia, including apparent poisoning of meals at restaurants where waiters stood around and giggled as Black people ate. Beatings, intimidation, and refusal of service.

  I recited them to the group. “Black, brown, and gay people,” I said, “need travel services that tell you, ‘These people don’t want you there. Fuck what the tourism bureau tells you—this is what will happen.’”

  The next morning, we were off to London, but we’d lost something. Not our innocence—none of us are naïve—but our wanderlust. That feeling of wanting to escape into a place and immerse yourself in its culture. Growing up Black and/or queer in America, you always think it must be better for you somewhere else. You see pictures of Nina Simone and James Baldwin smiling in the sunshine being so loved in the south of France, Paul Robeson playing to sellout audiences in Spain . . . and you say what I said when I saw King’s Landing: “Take me there. Take me fucking there.”

  We think it has to be better somewhere else, but it’s only when we leave that we really understand how anti-Blackness and bigotry are so ingrained in the white supremacy that fuels colonialism. The five of us got this early in our upbringing, living our lives in two worlds.

  Now we’d crossed an ocean and a sea, and were met with the mammy and Jim Crow caricatures we thought we’d left. Homegrown racism sold back to us like McDonald’s.

  We left Croatia, probably never to return, which is what they wanted. After London we were on to Monaco, then Cannes. These spaces were white, but my fame and money trumped all. For now, my team and I had the right currency. But in a flash, again, that could sudden
ly not matter. We knew that now. I had fame and money on that night in Dubrovnik, and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that my friend in his mesh top was willing to fight our way out. We knew when to run.

  Dwyane brought Zaya and Kaavia James to meet me in the south of France, where James Baldwin and Nina Simone had been neighbors. A commercial Dwyane had done was up for awards at the Cannes Lions festival, and we were treated like Black royalty. Waiters cooed over Kaav at breakfast, smiled at Zaya, and asked for selfies with Dwyane.

  But I found myself holding Kaavia James everywhere we went. I wanted the weight of her, the entirety of her, safe in my right arm. I kept my other arm free. To do what? To grab a bottle to break? What was I getting ready for? And what, as a Black woman in America, and now the world, did I always have to be in a state of readiness for?

  When Kaav strained at my arm, reaching down at the floor, I knew she wanted to practice her crawling. To see the world on her terms. But I wanted her up high with me, where she was safe.

  “You just want to explore, don’t you?” Zaya said to Kaav.

  I reluctantly put her down. “I get it,” I said.

  17

  How to Pitch Your Life

  At first, it’s simply flattering when people ask you for career advice. You tuck a lock of hair behind your ear, and say, “Well.” And then you look at this person, young or old, and you feel the weight of their hope. Yes, there may be questions about dealing with a toxic workplace or troubleshooting issues with a coworker, but often they are talking about a dream. They want to be seen and heard, in whatever their endeavor.

  I have seen this up close the last couple years with my production company. I bring a “to whom much is given, much is required” sense to the work of helping writers and artists develop and sell their projects. I now get to do what people did for me; the people who came before me and didn’t just watch me struggle but offered advice. As a boss, I want to provide more opportunities for women of color, and for LGBTQ+ communities—really any marginalized voice. I find the projects and people others overlook, so new stories can be told.

  That means I get to be in the room when that magic moment happens and a pitch takes off. A pitch is just a presentation of an idea. It can be anything, but in my case, I am watching people pitch film and TV projects, whole worlds they have created. They can share these stories with a larger audience if they can just get the gatekeepers in the room to believe in them.

  Recently I watched a woman I mentored land the deal in the room. This was her fourth time pitching, and the other three times it just hadn’t been a good fit or she got in her own way. In one, her voice shook, and then it shook her and she couldn’t get past it. In another, a guy was on his phone most of the time. But I believed in her and her pilot. She’d been hot in town briefly when she was young, a time when people can prize your sexy over your talent. She told me that when the sexy faded, she had the same talent, but not as much interest. I joked to her that I had a lot of experience going from it girl to shit girl.

  “You only need one yes,” I had reminded her a few times. And we could feel it coming right there, in that fourth pitch. What was on the page, that magic, was now in the room. My producing partner and I exchanged a smile. We had been her own personal cheering section in these rooms, but now she was flying on her own.

  She has been on my mind because I knew she was close to giving up. She just needed someone like me to believe in her. I am not someone who drinks from the Think Positive mug, but I have found success helping people find their success by giving positive, constructive criticism. It doesn’t have to be a death blow or some insulting shit somebody’s never gonna get over. Over time, I have figured out what different people need in order to get over the hump, and to be acknowledged. To be released. Whatever you’re pitching—your story, your investment opportunity, your business, your life—I want you to win. Here’s what I know:

  1. FIND YOUR REAL PEOPLE

  Have you ever noticed how mediocre people keep getting breaks? It’s because there’s a buddy system to every industry, not just mine, so known quantities continue to get deals even as they rack up failures. Mediocre people look after their own, promoting each other and giving each other work. They don’t want to look farther than the end of their nose to find talent, and they firmly believe that their friends happen to be the best qualified for the job. A show about the Ozarks? They know a guy they came up with in L.A. who’d have fun with “that world.” A show about Dominicans in Spanish Harlem? Their all-white friends are just the thing. They don’t really want to do a search because they might find out they’re not the most qualified person for the job they have, either.

  What if you stop trying to appeal to that closed-off crew, and instead focus on the people who you want to hang with? The people I find or who are drawn to me are mostly either literally brand new to the industry and have never been staffed on a show, or they are marginalized people who have never had someone backing them up. But we find each other because we are like-minded people who are really about the liberation of marginalized folks. We are on the same fucking page, even if we have never met before. We are bound by our passion, which is stronger and more nourishing than a “brand.”

  This isn’t just about Hollywood and writers’ rooms. When I talk about finding your people, I mean look around you. They’re the people from school or your job in any industry and at any stage of your life—the ones you create with or you run ideas by because you value their feedback. They’re not in the spotlight yet, either, but that doesn’t matter if you’re looking for the people who are not lit from above, but lit from within. The Avengers you assemble don’t have to be golden by the standards of the industry you are breaking in to. They just need to have the same work ethic as you, and believe in effective communication and positive affirmation.

  And here’s the key: don’t trade them in once you make it. There’s this notion that as you ascend or expand, these people either fall away beneath you or they become your competitors. No, keep these people with you, so you all can draw upon each other for encouragement and support.

  2. EXPAND YOUR DREAM TO INCLUDE OTHERS

  For a long time, I carried a quote around with me. “I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.” It’s Toni Morrison, of course, talking about publishing The Bluest Eye at age thirty-nine. Little Black girls did not exist in many books then, except as window dressing or props. Certainly no one had tried to capture the vast landscapes of their interior lives. And so, she did.

  As you pursue this impulse to create what you need to see, even if it’s just your own achievement, I guarantee you that you will be stronger in doing so if it’s to share it with your community and chosen family. I recently relaunched my hair-care line Flawless. The initial 2017 launch had done well financially, but the line didn’t really reflect my values. I realized that if I was creating a product for my hair, my first order of business in reclaiming my company was to become Black-owned, Black-led, and Black-marketed. I also wanted to serve my community by not increasing my profit margin through price gouging.

  Yes, there’s added pressure when you’re representing something larger than yourself, but so often that gets put on you anyway. People will ask you, “How does it feel to represent . . .” You have an opportunity to claim your people at the beginning of your journey, and draw strength from them as you do right by them.

  3. BE YOUR OWN “YES”

  The goal of pitching a TV or film project is to get more than one “yes.” Ideally, you want to be able to pick your perfect partner in getting your ideas aired, and also, it’s always fun to have a bidding war. But the most important component I’ve seen is what that first “yes” does for the person pitching. They do their best work in the room because they have been released from the need to be chosen. At that point, they are just pitching out of passion.

  So, give a yes to your motherfucking self before you’re even in the room. When your success is you, that is not cont
ingent on needing to hear “yes, we’re buying it” from anybody. You make that “yes” less important, and free yourself of needing it so badly. Yeah, it’s nice, but it’s not necessary to keep your passion and dream alive.

  Believing in yourself sounds gauzy and spiritual, but it has practical applications. It affects voice quality. You remove the tremor that comes from nerves, and you eliminate the filler language and those long pauses you use when trying to gather your thoughts. You don’t get thrown by the faces looking back at you, or the follow-up questions they throw at you. You own your story already, and lots of confidence comes from that.

  All because you chose your damn self.

  4. QUESTIONS ARE INVITATIONS, NOT CHALLENGES

  When we’re in that period and mindset after the first “yes,” I see people react differently to questions from gatekeepers. They are no longer questions on a quiz or some form of attack, but thoughts to be considered from a potential investor. From someone so interested in the idea you have created that they want to know more.

  The same goes for any feedback. You can be strengthened by hearing what is not working or landing in the way you want. Examine it and decide what you’re gonna take and what you’re gonna discard. When I see someone acknowledge someone’s concern about a project rather than fold or become defensive, it’s like I’m watching a giant being made.

  And yes, in any position or industry, there is going to be rejection. They threw a lemon at you, and now you have an opportunity to hand it back to them and, say, “Make me some lemonade.” The lemonade of feedback is the fresh insight into why you didn’t close the deal to get the job this time. Turn them into a focus group so you can anticipate these issues in other situations.

  5. LEAVE YOUR HEART IN THE ROOM

  I’ve wanted every job that I went out for. I laugh when people ask if I remember any roles I didn’t get. If I got dressed and went somewhere, it meant I wanted the role, so of course I remember them. As an actress, it’s hard for a grown Black woman to find roles that are nuanced and complex.