#138 (SoHo Billboard)

Days before seeing it with my own eyes, I had heard about it. The infamous pro-life billboard in Soho proclaiming the womb as the most dangerous place for an african-american child. After the initial shock I spent my off day looking for this oversized reminder that unjust bias still resides in the world, and even worse it's plastered in the streets of my beloved city. Seeing it only made my emotional response worse.
Standing alone on the corner in the rain, I was the only one in the crowd unable to move, crying for memory of being that woman who had to make that choice. I stood there crying for 10 years of what might have been, and 3 years of what was and still is the worst yet best choice i had ever made. I hated that in my face was a reminder of the lives I had altered. I hated that for 5 minutes I was a lively, talented, intelligent, ambitious, 17 year old hs senior facing a world of possibility and pondering the reality of a baby again. I remember that saturday in a brisk October, the only day I could do it without arousing my mother's suspicion and ultimately incurring her wrath. Like any "cool" mom she knew everything I was doing, and taught me everything I needed to know to protect myself. So I should have known better. I should have been better. I remember going to soho alone ans waiting for what seemed like forever. Seeing the sad, drawn faces of the girls who had been before me. Waiting in my white gown & socks, staring at (possibly) the same spot as everyone else in the room. Too ashamed to call anyone for help, after ward I waited alone and feared I'd always be that way. As if from that moment on a scarlet A would forever be branded on my forehead. Some years later I would be diagnosed with PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome), and in effect may never have children. But neither scenario was the case. Today I am the mother of two beautiful children. But for 5 minutes I was 17, alone, angry, and scared.
After the memory faded, the anger remained. To be a black woman in america is enough without the extra in your face commentary of the ultra conservatives. That posted reminded me of a time in childhood when white kids in school would tell me to go back to my country. As if african slaves had been given a choice in the matter. Its an open display of racial bias disguised as an ideal. TBC...
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