I had never met her. So needless to say, she had never done anything to me. But years ago, I remember that I just did not like Gabrielle Union. There was nothing rational about the scorn. But I felt like I was justified in harboring it. If anyone ever asked me about it, I would make up something. "I don't like her nose." "I hate the way she talks". "She thinks she's all that". I would say anything that came to mind. One day, I found myself watching The Brothers alone for the first time. It wasn't that typical watch party I would have with my girls as we high-fived each other on how fine the men were and how we couldn't stand Gabrielle's "bony ass", as we so affectionately called her. It was a regular TK Day where I just sat around and watched movies to entertain myself. I was watching the scene where she was lying on the couch with her head in Morris Chestnut's lap. After I got past hating because she was so close to such a beautiful specimen, I looked at her. I mean, I REALLY looked at her. The way she had her hair pushed back from her face and even though I know she had on movie makeup, there was nothing glamorous about her in that scene. She looked like a regular person. She looked like someone who, if I really tried, I could call a friend. That shook me because I had spent so much time spewing venom at the screen when I saw her in a movie. I wasn't supposed to like her. I mean not even for a second. I flipped off my TV and like a kid waking up from a bad dream, I sat up in my bed hugging my knees and rocking back and forth for a moment. Because I am someone who always wants to explain my feelings to myself, I had to figure out exactly why I hated her. So, I turned on my computer and Googled her. First, I looked at pictures. I talked to myself the whole time. "You said you didn't like her nose. What's wrong with it?" My pride spoke up. "Well, it's...." I shook it off. There was nothing wrong with her nose. Absolutely nothing. My pride spoke up again. "Are her eyes too close together? That has to be it. You always feel weird about people whose eyes are too close together." No. Her eyes were fine too. Still, I felt like I really HAD to find something. I stared. Nothing. So, I found another picture. Stared. Nothing there. Saw one with her smiling. I never noticed that she had dimples before. I wish I had dimples. Shut up, TK. The more I looked, the more I started to notice things. Gabrielle's skin tone and mine were not that different from one another. Since the beginning of time, light skin was what was always known to be beautiful. But here she was, a brown girl, and people loved her. Men found her sexy. I went through some red carpet photos and realized she hadn't "looked stupid as hell" like I said she had when it was live. She was actually very fashionable. I ran across photos from her King Magazine spread (the one that should have REALLY made me hate her) and shocked myself beyond measure. On the cover, she posed innocently in a black bikini and even had that deer-caught-in-headlights look I'm sure we are all guilty of having at some point in our lives. The one with the flower in her hair didn't repulse me the way I initially thought it did and the word "slut" didn't cross my mind anymore when I saw the one of her cat-crawling in just her bottoms. The spread was tastefully done and she looked absolutely gorgeous. I looked back through the other photos. She smiled. And it shined. No matter how much I hated her from my tiny dorm room in Birmingham, Gabrielle Union still smiled. She was not affected one bit by the fact that I found every stupid reason I could not to like her. My feelings had no effect on her at all and there I was, sitting on my bed shuffling through photos like a madwoman trying to prove something to myself. But wait. It had to be in the videos. I went through YouTube video after YouTube video trying to figure out what I didn't like about the way this woman talked. Kristen said "It's like she talks around her teeth." Maybe that was it. Wait. What? What the hell does that even mean? Gabrielle Union was articulate and even in character, rarely ever used colloquialisms. While I was going through the videos, I asked myself the obvious question. Why the hell had I seen so many Gabrielle Union films? The truth about the whole thing was that this woman was amazingly talented and Hollywood knew it. She wasn't just walking onto the set and giving HERSELF the roles. She was getting hired because she was working hard and obviously working well. In the end, I found that there was nothing wrong with Gabrielle Monique Union. She was a beautiful, successful, hardworking brown girl. She was exactly what I should have been striving to be. "TK, you are a stupid, stupid bitch", I heard myself say. I took some time to think about the friends I surrounded myself with who helped me bash this woman. Later, I would let them in on my epiphany and they would answer "I still don't like her". That told me there was something about this beautiful, successful, hardworking brown girl that they never wanted to be. I realized I was on a much different path than they. That caused me to examine them in other situations and realize just hoe little value they added to my life. I became a Gabrielle Union fan and decided that I, too, would become a beautiful, successful, hardworking brown girl.
Fast-forwarding to the 2013 Essence Awards, as though she wasn't already looking gorgeous enough to not have to say a word, Gabrielle Union stunned me. As she accepted her Fierce & Fearless Award, she gave a speech that kicked me in the heart. There were parts of her speech that were funny, but the rest of it was just real beyond belief. She and I felt the EXACT same about reading Huck Finn in class. We both prayed that we didn't run across a "Nigger Jim". We both reveled in the gossip and "took joy in people's pain and tapdanced on their misery". She spoke courageously about her failed marriage and her journey to live her truth. I got teary-eyed when she talked about not wanting to "function in dysfunction and misery" but really wanting to BE happy instead of pretending to be happy. She talked about how easy it was to commit to misery. She said "Real fierce and fearless women are truth-seekers...We stand up and use our voices for something other than self-promotion....Real fierce and fearless women celebrate and compliment other women and we recognize and embrace the notion that their shine in no way diminishes our light and that it actually makes our light shine brighter". I am not ashamed to say that I sat with tears streaming down my face because I was in disbelief that this woman who I had once felt so much contempt for for no good reason at all knew exactly what was on my heart and had been the same type of mean girl that I was. She spoke with dignity about her pitfalls and carried herself with grace. The hardest type of person to be is one that learns from experience. It is always so easy to drown out the lessons with blame. But there she was in front of everyone telling us exactly what she had learned. I stood and cheered louder than probably anyone in that room when she left the stage. I learned that it was possible for someone who had experienced some of the same painful things I had to come out on the other side of it with a smile and that the only shame should come in not sharing what you've learned.
As if that speech wasn't enough, Gabby (I can call her that since we are friends in my had now), was cast to play Mary Jane Paul in Being Mary Jane, a brainchild of my SHEro Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil. When I would talk to my friends about our positions in love and life, I would always compare us to beautiful houses with broken furniture. We are all the inspiration behind the piece I posted on this blog called "The Truth About Women". But in Being Mary Jane, I get to watch the story of one of those beautiful houses unfold without having to sustain any more damage in the process. First of all, my girl is a broadcast journalist who is at the top of the game. That does something for me because even as I still try to break into the world of print journalism, I still have people trying to talk me into broadcast. I have not yet conquered my horror of seeing myself on camera. But because on TalkBack, MJ says a lot of what I would say, I get to live through her. But looking further at the character, on the surface, she appears to have it all together. She stops at nothing to be there for her friends and her family. She gives very little care to her own real happiness, but takes extra care to LOOK happy on the surface. She has bad luck in love, not the best luck with friends sometimes and even though she is driven by her career, at the end of the day all she wants is a man who is truly hers to lover her and maybe a few hardheaded kids to yell "No", "Don't" and "Stop it" at when she comes home. As I watch Mary Jane go through things, some parts feel as though I am watching a demo reel of the movie of my own life. And the fact that sometimes she doesn't do what is right or smart or may make her parents proud lets me know that my mistakes are okay and that sometimes it does take more than one time for your heart to break before you really start to hear it crack. She may not have gotten the role in Scandal. But I, for one, am grateful because I really don't think anyone else could have brought this home for me the way Gabrielle does.
Just as all public relationships do, Gabrielle's relationship with Dwayne Wade has come under scrutiny too. From people calling her a homewrecker to singing their "I wouldn't" and "I can't believe she" songs when the world found out about Dwayne's youngest son. I will admit to initially looking a little wide-eyed at the fact that there was a young baby in the midst with another woman soon after Gabby and D.Wade announced their engagement. But I had to step back for a moment and let something my sister Kenisha said echo in my head. "I don't judge the dynamics of any relationship because I will never know what it takes to love that man". I thought to myself, 'This woman has shown her strength. She has shown her intelligence. She has shown her courage. And she has shown, above all, that she is not a damned fool. If she knows about this baby and has seen fit to still become Mrs. Dwayne Wade, then there has to be a whole helluva lot that we don't know. And the fact that we don't know says it is none of our business'. I love that they are in love. I love that they have fun together and despite how it looks to outsiders, I love the fact that she, his two older boys, the nephew he has adopted and the new baby are going to be a family. I hope she continues to walk so far in the opposite direction of the naysayers that their voices become faint whispers. I hope she has truly found the happiness she has always wanted.
To this day, the only real reason I found that I hated Gabrielle Union was because she was out there doing what I couldn't and doing what I dared. But by looking closer at the reasons I disliked her, I got to look deeper at and get to know myself. I got to finally become a beautiful, successful, hardworking brown girl. And I made a promise to myself to not stop chasing my dreams until this heart of mine gives out. Thank you Gabby for showing me that I can be fierce and fearless too.
TK
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