I'm on The L Train

& dinner table characters of New York City

“ We are all players on a stage that was built long before our ancestors arrived on this land.” - Isabel Wilkerson - Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents

We made it to April, all of the racism, anti-Black American tweets, Azealia Banks copy-cats, YALL COULD NEVER BE HER STOP TRYING! Also in April the white DJ with baby hairs and box braids with a choppy New York accent who’s from Minnesota, and Logan Roy fan fic. We have risen!

Where have I been? Currently, crying on the L Train writing this down while a baby’s head leans on my shoulder unbeknownst to the mother breastfeeding the other baby. Twins are obnoxious. I’m sorry, like how dare two of me grow in utero? It’s a sick joke. While co-parenting with a stranger on the L train, I am thinking about my past week.

I visited one of the oldest cities in America, New Orleans, you can feel the history as soon as you step foot on the cobblestone ground. But I was sick the entire time, and it made me angry at everything, no one was safe. I started playing Drake to drown out the fun I heard outside. I became a villain.

A villain that had to go to dinner the next day in New York.

A marvelous dinner, a dinner of creatives, actors, activist influencers, ( those are my fave), and a professor. This may sound like a random bunch.

We’re a group of people who aren’t honest about why we’re sitting at a table to celebrate our talents. We’re telling each other lies and pretending that this table feels inclusive that it feels welcoming, that there are no barriers. 

And for a moment I feel equal to the millionaire across from me, as talented as the Emmy winner sitting next to me.

And then I snap out of it. Being at the same table it can be easy to not see that  there are still barriers and hierarchies and the only thing we have in common is that we are there for the same thing: 

To be seen. And to exist for the main characters.

First course:

A choice of red or white wine will be asked by a server and then the small talk will begin. 

Small talk could be genuine but with a group like this we’re all trying to see where to place everyone to see if you’re worth the effort, and worth the follow on Instagram.  To see if you’ll socially participate in the play that features the arbitrary divisions and hierarchies we place on one another in artistic spaces. 

We’re all characters playing this role of the ‘artiste caste system’ ( make sure you said that all fancy) and yes duh there are absolutely main characters. And behind those main characters are understudies just waiting for a catastrophic event to occur ( being canceled preferably) so they can be in the spot of looking down at everyone else so they can be in the spot of not doing much, because well we have the side characters to keep the play afloat. 

At the dinner table, we have—  The butch in a beanie for diversity who checks most of the marginalized boxes, and the struggling comedian for laughs. The writer is the hero, the fashion model who we will make the table go from unconventional to textbook beautiful with a tease of her smile.

And the server is meant to serve. 

Ahh wait, don’t be so quick to feel superior to him. We’re here to serve as well, it just looks different.

Second course 

We stay in the roles, we know better than to try and take over someone else’s lines, and we believe these roles are inherent. We believe it gives us purpose. 

The main character at the head of the table needs us to perform our character’s duties. 

The server returns because you drank your wine pretty quickly trying to keep up with the performance and adjusting your costume.  Because I don’t want for one second to reveal my true self, I know how I am seen in the world and how I am seen at this dinner table.

The server is sticking to their script although he has no lines. And you believe they also deserve that role. You know that even for a second if the server were to stop pouring the wine and sit down and join in the conversation you would panic you would look around to see if anyone else has noticed that the server has broken the rules. That someone didn’t memorize their lines.

Hold on this mom is struggling with her babies she’s about to drop a toy. 

Her: “Sorry could you hold this real quick?”

Me: “Sure.” 

Okay, where was I… the script. We’re at dinner and we’re following the script putting all of ourselves into this role. A role that is an illusion of who we think we are. 

The dinner table has: 

The coarse gay guy who is effortlessly flawless

The activist, who is there to make us feel better about enjoying an expensive dinner.

“Luxury is resistance.” She says. Reassuring us that we can fight the good fight in the morning or next week, or just repost her stories will alleviate the pleasure we have in this caviar.

We are all there at this dinner to be seen by the dominant caste to be seen by whiteness to be seen by anyone in power. We are desperate for a seat at a table. 

We’re all forgetting a seat at the table is still a table of social hierarchies even if the characters there are oppressed. We believe we worked hard and that’s why we belong at this table. Another lie.

At this table. We’re all fighting for our roles to continue, contributing to the success of the main character. Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten my lines. I’m smiling for every photo.

Third course

You reach the end of the night no one here actually knows each other as we put on a hell of a performance never showing each other who we really are accepting the assumptions and never questioning or resisting the roles. We’re all desperate, to not be the server, desperate to go home and post about the night and make all who weren’t at this table envious. Some of us may not be the main character at the table but we’re on the stage and will continue to stick to the script and play our roles so that we are never in the audience again.  

Because we know how they are treated because we don’t value them. Because we know there is a ranking and we perpetuate it we live it.  

This dinner has boundaries and rules that no one wants to address because we’ve been told this dinner table is equal, we’re all the same here. So no need to confront our roles, no need to expose the superior roles at the table because we favor them of course, we do because they designed this entire play for us.  They gave us a seat.

There are many hierarchies in the world and this dinner so happens to be one. 

We’re all here because we don’t necessarily want to get to know one another we’re here because we’re creatives of New York this dinner is about a ladder we want to climb, it’s about others maintaining worth and value or accessing it, and wanting nothing to do with those who we have assumed can’t offer us something. 

A few more stops left. One of the babies is now standing on the seat and babbling at me. I give him his toy back.

“ He seems to really like you.” the mom says 

I smile at the bright blue-eyed baby and use a high-pitched sing-song voice “ Hello cutie, hello cutie” 

Okay so yeah this dinner reminded me of the dominant culture assigning our value and worth to us at birth. And where we were all seated at this table wasn’t an accident. Our assumptions of each other the ranking we’re doing, the fixed characters that we’re playing, and the groups we’ve been put in are designed intentionally, it’s superficial and it’s to make the audience desperate to be amongst us, but to be amongst this is to be desperate to meet the needs of the main characters that will keep you close, befriend and invite you to sit at the table, but remind you that you can never be them. 

We’re all sitting here signaling to each other in our small talks about who is valuable. And then the curtain closes the servers remove our plates. 

We leave and easily flow into another hierarchy. Another system. Performing still in character. Refreshing our Instagram feeds waiting to see if that superior person will follow you after you both got along so well, chopping it up at the dinner table.

They won’t.

Dessert:

Getting off the L Train now. This is my stop, oh wow… the mother with the twins they’re getting up, it’s their stop as well.

I’m just going to help her carry her stroller off the train… and up the stairs.

Listen we have roles to play. To meet the needs of the dominant culture. To feed the dominant group. Sometimes the characters that we were assigned at birth can make the dominant culture look so good, our role is also to show the audience that they are inclusive, and accepting, so they’re going to need us to sit at their table. And some of us are going to say let’s make our own table… and then go on to repeat the same seating arrangement the same hierarchies, the same script.

At dinner, I was the butch in the beanie.

We see people and assume a role, and without hesitation, we demand them to play it.

Today I was the Black woman helping a rich white mom carry a 3 thousand-dollar stroller up the stairs.

I’m still in character. We all are.

-C

A Butch in a Beanie