Amber Phillips - Angry

 

 

Have some friends in the audience. [audience laughter] So, this one time, I woke up in the middle of the night and my mom was praying over me. Just her in the dark sitting there, having a little talk with Jesus over her badass daughter. See, when I was young, I had terrible anger issues. I was about seven years old, one time, at a family dinner, I'm not sure what my uncle did besides breathe too hard in my direction. I responded by calling him a purple bastard. Yes. 

 

See, when kids act like that, people think something's wrong at home. But honestly, my family was amazing. We laughed as much as we cried. We loved each other boldly and loudly, but we were living paycheck to paycheck, and I hated it. 

 

My mom was a visionary. Truly. She would turn the electric being cut off into her paycheck, into these candlelit dinners. But as time went on, I could start to feel how much she worried, and how hard she worked and how we never seemed to quite have everything we needed. It made me angry. It made me mad. I was acting up at home, at school, even at church. So, my mom decided to take me to therapy. Yes, my black mother took her black child to therapy, okay? That was around the time I was starting to get nervous. 10-year-old Amber was nervous at this point, because I'm like, “My mom is voluntarily taking me to white folks to talk about my issues.” [audience laughter] 

 

I was sure this was the first stop to ending up on Murray, where they yell in the kids face and send them off to boot camp. I really want that for my life. So, she takes me to this children's hospital. As we're about to go in, she looks down at me and she gives her speech of, “Now, don't go in here and show your ass.” [audience laughter] We walk into the building. I sit with this perfectly fine white man for an hour telling him all about my life as this little black girl growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with my two sisters raised by my mom and all of my family members who happened to live in a 10-mile radius of our home. 

 

After I laid my little burdens down to this complete stranger, I'm sorry, my therapist, [audience laughter] my mom came back into the room and he gave her an update. It told the perfect balance of respecting our new patient-doctor relationship while also giving my mom the information she needed. And he says, “You know, Amber shared a lot of feelings of fear and helplessness. And her hostility seems to be rooted in her feeling of lack of control, because she doesn't have any money. So, I think that you should consider giving Amber, an allowance.” [audience laughter] 

 

I instantly felt betrayed. How did I explain this so wrong? If I don't have the money, my mom doesn't have the money. We're broke together. We're in this together. So, we leave. She looks at me and she says, “I will never make you go back there again.” [audience laughter] So, at least, we were on the same page. I think at this point, my mom was really tired of her needs and the needs of her children not being met by these medical professionals. I was tired for her, but not tired enough to stop showing my ass. 

 

So, you should also know that I grew up in the type of family that was always at church. See, if your grandparents weren't on the leadership of the deaconess and deacon board, you simply don't know my pain, baby. We was always at church, okay? And around the height of my behavior problems, my mom became a secretary at our church. But during that time, she became really good friends with a person I would grow to know and love as Aunt Gail. 

 

Aunt Gail attended our church. She was amazing. She was one of those people who knew the Lord personally. Her God had seen her through a couple of things. Her God was like that one auntie who would shake a $20bill in your hand at the family dinner when you were on your last dime and unsure if your gas tank would even make it back home. Her God had seen her through some things. One of the things I loved about Aunt Gail, she could sing the Holy Spirit into any room. She was one of those never shallow, rock cry out in my name praises. She would bring her own instruments to church and would cue up her own solos from the pew even while the choir was singing. [audience laughter] Full choir, full band. [unintelligible 00:42:09] with the tambourine, okay? 

 

I love that about her. I couldn't wait to grow up and have that kind of audacity. But I was also afraid of Aunt Gail, okay? Because Aunt Gail was one of those born-again Christians. Meaning, she was raised in the church, dipped out to have her little fun for a couple years, [audience laughter] and then made her return a resubscribed Christian, if you will, okay? [audience laughter] She was also the type of Christian who carried an Our Daily Bread devotional booklet in her purse next to her pack of Newport’s. And that told me that she was a cussing Christian. And so was I, but I was 10 years, and a kid. Shouldn't have been cussing. 

 

So, another time, when I got a phone call home from school, this time for calling my teacher a turtle looking ass bitch. [audience laughter] Creative. That's when I woke up to my mom praying over me. It wasn't like she started by turning my mental health over to the Lord. She had seriously tried other options. So, she was going to go with prayer and classic family shaming. 

 

Black mothers are known for telling everybody your little business, especially when you have shown your ass. My mom told the last person on earth I wanted to know which was Aunt Gail. Another thing you should know about Aunt Gail, is when she wasn't singing and praising the lord on Sundays and catching the Holy Spirit-- On Wednesday, she was known for crocheting during Bible study. I loved that about her too and wanted to learn. 

 

So, after I had gotten another call home from school, I come to church on Sunday and I see her across the pews. She looks at me and points and gives one of these, “Come talk to me.” So, I drag my feet over just knowing she knew what I did and looks at me and she says, “I hear you want to learn how to crochet.” That was what I was expecting. I look at her and I say, “Yes.” And she says, “Yes, what?” I say, “Yes, ma'am.” The classic call and response between adults who are not your little friend and small black children who are trying their luck. So, she tells me, “Tomorrow you're coming over my house, and I'm going to teach you how to crochet.” I was like, “Okay. Good deal.” 

 

So, my mom picks me up from school, takes me over to Aunt Gail's house. And this time, she let me hop out of the car without giving her, “Now, don't go in here and show your ass” speech. I think we both knew I was no match for Aunt Gail. So, I go into Aunt Gail's house. It has that incense smell. I like to call it Auntie Core, where there's meal on the table, plastic on certain things that don't need plastic for that long. [audience laughter] She tells me her real story, the story underneath her testimony. I don't look like what I've been through. The story is when she only carried that pack of Newport’s. And then, she showed me how to crochet. 

 

She hands me a needle and ball of yarn, and she picks up her needle and ball of yarn, and I watch everything she does as she starts her first row. I copy everything she does. It looks like her hands are in a groove of her pattern as she's starting out her first knits. I think I'm falling until it becomes clear to me that mine looks nothing like hers, and I say, mine doesn't look like that. She looks at me over her glasses and she says, “And getting frustrated isn't going to help it look like that either.” Me, obviously, frustrated, “I'm not frustrated. I just want it to be right. And this looks a mess.”

 

She puts down her needle and yarn, and she says, “Look at your hands.” I stop right as these tears start to come into my eyes, because I'm getting angry, and I look at my cramping hands. My pattern was inflexible and rigid, whereas it seemed like she was just flowing with her work. And she says, “The number one rule of crocheting is tension. Tension determines what your pattern will look like. If your tension is too loose, your pattern will be loose and have holes in it. And if the tension is too tight, your pattern will be inflexible and rigid.” She says, “Without controlling and maintaining your tension, you can't do shit. You can't make a potholder, let alone a blanket without controlling and maintaining your tension. Do you understand?” I say, yes.” She says, “Yes, what?” [audience laughter] “Yes, ma'am,” I understand.” 

 

See, in that moment, Aunt Gail spoke to my anger, where everyone up until that moment tried to shrink it, even if it meant shrinking me with it. She taught me that you have to use that anger. You can't just get rid of it. And to this day, I'm grown now- [audience laughter and applause] -and I still get very angry. I still feel the tension come into my body when I think about how this country treats poor black people. It makes me angry that in life, George Floyd was assumed to not have $20. But in death, he was able to raise millions. It makes me angry that it took what felt like a literal crack in the universe for people to understand that black folks are human beings who, of course, matter. So, I used tension. I used tension, and I get to the root of my anger and the systematic issues instead of letting it control me. And yes, I still come into places and show my ass. [audience laughter]