Look Out, Sis
A Snapshot of Black Girl, Adulting
TeeVee is a talker.
Leah bought her on Black Friday from Look Out, Sis, an up-and-coming Black woman owned tech store. The day before the purchase, she scrolled on Flexagram to pass the time. During her Thanksgiving dinner for one, she swept through posts of glistening soul food plates and occasional protests to the colonizer’s holiday. Thumb aching from scroll after scroll, Leah came across an advertisement for Look Out, Sis.
Or, maybe, it found her.
“Hey girl, hey! #BuyBlack and support Look Out, Sis. We sell TVs, tablets, laptops, and your everyday electronics. We got a brand new product, too: Laid Revolution. We know that hair can be stressful and created this automated flatiron just for you. It’s easy to use! Just hover its scanner above a pic of your desired style, and it won’t miss a thing. Plus, it’s infused with an 100% organic CBD heat protectant. Buy today for a money back guarantee. #BlackGirlMagic #Ujamaa”
“Unh unh! Is this for real?” Leah couldn’t believe the caption.
Somebody was always promoting something new, but this post just hit different. When Leah was a girl, Mama would hot-comb her hair in Sunday kitchens. Like muscle memory, Mama’s hand flowed from stovetop to paper towel to the Blue Magic greased strands from Leah’s scalp.
“Mama, please don’t burn my ear,” she winced.
These days, Leah wears her hair natural. Back in college, she did the big chop to her family’s dismay.
“Are you mixed? Your hair is long for a Black girl,” folks used to tell her.
Leah long grew tired of feeling in bondage to others’ beauty standards. She didn’t need or want a flatiron, no matter how revolutionary it was. What she would always do, though, was support her people.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get a TV.”
Leah clicked on Look Out, Sis’ website link and, after some browsing, added the 45” flat screen Genius television to her cart.
The Genius TV is our most popular item. Order it, and you’ll learn why.
Following the usual steps of entering her billing address and credit card info, she wasn’t yet able to complete the order.
“Before completing this purchase, you must read our disclaimer.”
She then guided the cursor to open the pop-up window:
We are a Black woman owned business. Our products are unapologetically designed for Black communities. We know full well that there is no lack of white-owned companies exploiting our people. So, Look Out, Sis is for us.
“I’m with it,” thought Leah.
Two mornings later, her television arrived at her door.
The truth is that Leah is hungry for noise. A month ago, she moved to Milestone, a historically Black city, for a gig at Renewal, an urban planning company. It will soon be her first grown up job, and she is stacked with student loans. Needing every check, she’s doubtful if college was worth dying in debt. Still finding her rhythm, she misses the feeling of being known, the hug of hometown street signs, and itis from greasy food shops. But her parents are proud of her. The least she can do is thank them by attempting to “adult.”
For her first day of work, Leah enters Renewal, a sun painted loft-like open office with all the amenities. Even its kitchenette has cardboard cartons of vapor distilled water, a trendy milk frother, and a platter of organic fruits.
Touring her around the space, her 40-something boss, Andrew, wears a casual button-up, cuffed jeans, and navy blue Oxfords. Leah observes framed photos of American bridges and freeways on every wall. Noticing her scrutinizing the images, Andrew giddily remarks, “Oh yeah, to keep this place from getting stale, we have a lot of art. We switch it up every year, but the theme is always urban renewal. Inspiration, ya know?”
Leah hesitantly nods her head.
She catches the name Robert Moses listed on placards next to several photos.
“Why do I know that name?” she thinks.
Leah’s memory is often precise, but not this time. She abandons the question.
For the rest of the workday, Leah tucks uneasiness into her pocket. For one, she is the only Black employee, but isn’t this her dream? In high school, she became a community organizer. It saddened her to ride past the one public park in her working-class Black neighborhood. Leah’s 10th grade civics teacher, Mr. Williams, who also doubled as the school basketball coach, helped her to mobilize a park revitalization. With his guidance, she successfully petitioned for new swings, slides, and picnic tables. Later, Leah decided on urban planning at her Ivy League alma mater. She wanted to reimagine city landscapes and public accommodations for the good of Black and Brown communities. Renewal, she told herself, could be her way.
In the afternoon, Andrew gives a presentation to the whole team, which he titles, Blank Slate.
“Everyone, welcome our new team member, Leah. She is so articulate and will be an asset to our team,” he says. “Okay, let’s continue our agenda. We have funders ready to invest. We’ve been constantly talking with the mayor, who is good friends with Zack, the founder of Flexagram. They are on board with our plan to open charter schools, dog parks, and luxury apartment buildings. Just look all over for proof of profit—Detroit, Brooklyn, Inglewood, to name a few. It’s time for the people who flew away from Milestone to come back and take what’s…”
Andrew catches his throat and scratches it before continuing.
“Our strategy is fail-proof.”
Leah promises to call her parents for a first day recap. She is spent, though, and of no energy for more than some mindless TV. When she presses the power button, TeeVee introduces herself.
Hey girl, hey! I’m TeeVee.
She spells out her name, so Leah can catch its uniqueness.
I’m a little different from other televisions. My electrowaves channel your energy, so that I always show you what you need to see. All of my channels are strictly Black media, and only accessible to Black people. I’ve got entertainment, news, cooking, meditation, you name it! But I can only match your energy.
Hearing this would have been peculiar, but Leah is too exhausted to think much of it. Heck, maybe she is dreaming.
Hmm, let’s play some reality TeeVee. Get it? My name is TeeVee.
Mumbling into the remote’s built-in mic, Leah resigns with an “Alright then.”
The reality show turns out to be a documentary about Robert Moses. Leah is reminded about his racist legacy of demolishing Black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods for “urban renewal,” mostly in New York.
Wait, how did you…that name?
When the episode finishes, TeeVee turns to 24/7 Counter-Stories, a community news channel.
Tonight, I’m at Milestone Community Center with Protect the Block. This coalition of local grassroot organizers, teachers, young people, artists, and non-Black co-conspirators has been growing strong since 2012.
A loc’d up Rapunzel, the news anchor, directs his mic at the coalition’s spokesperson, a 17-year old high schooler named De’Von. De’Von attends Knowledge of Self (KOS), a predominantly Black alternative high school. KOS, funded by mutual aid, has partnerships with a handful of accredited colleges/universities, trade schools, and entrepreneurial programs. Othered from the state’s governance, it is free to humanize students. Standardized tests are defunct while reciprocal and creative assessments are embraced.
De’Von, what do you want to tell us?
Stepping to the mic, De’Von shamelessly admits,
We need each other. These white folks are trying to steal our home and erase what we know. They want to push us out of where we’ve raised families, gone to school, played ball, built businesses, scraped our knees. But nah, we know too much to not resist. Everybody, come through tomorrow morning at 10am. We’ll explain the rest when you show up.
The next morning, it feels irrational for Leah to not return to Renewal. She puts on her “work fit,” packs her plant-based lunch, and has every intention to do what is expected of her. Yet, something inside her holds magnetic convictions. Grabbing her keys, she hops in her car, typing Milestone Community Center into her GPS.
Ten minutes later, Leah recognizes the glowing young man who is speaking in the center’s “Family Room.” De’Von’s pink durag is hard to miss. Coalition members are mostly locked in arms behind him. A few organizers sit in wheelchairs with comrades’ hands resting on their shoulders. An older Black woman interpreter, having learned sign language for her church’s ministry, embodies words with love.
Fam, thank you for showing up, for coming out even if you were unsure. This space is for everybody who wants to protect the block for Black people. In a few minutes, we’re handing you a gift that can never run out. It’s not only from us, but from those before and after us, too. We’re about to touch every place in Milestone with the Gift. The Gift will protect every home, every block, every community of the aging and the young and neighbors who’ve watched each other’s kids grow up. Y’all with us?
“We got you!” the attendees of many ages and longings answer, appearing accustomed to the call-and-response.
“Then, let’s get it,” shouts De’Von, almost musically.
A collective of KOS youth, all wearing flowers, begin confidently moving from person to person in a summoning ritual.
It is now Leah’s turn to be met and welcomed into the Milestone way of being and resisting.
Trembling, she echoes what she witnesses others do. When the KOS youth organizer faces Leah, she wings her hands open in response.
“You got permission and possibilities. You got us. Do you believe me?” the young person says before touching their own heart and then firmly holding Leah’s hands.
The gift is nothing fanciful, but it fills Leah with the power of choice.
“I believe you.”
“Then, you got it,” the KOS youth replies.
That day, everyone eventually receives what is for them and, by expansion, the community. Leah realizes that the noise she needed all along is in the sound of her voice being trusted. She needed, too, to listen to Milestone’s youth inviting her to live her story. They would all be safest if protecting each other’s gift.
Leah has neighbors again. With them, she could reconceptualize maps and plant parks while toiling and laughing. As a collective, they could have speakers playing dope music on every corner. They could tattoo loved ones’ portraits into murals. Their masterpieces would be the community’s curriculum. Milestone was all she would need to grow and give.
The evening following Milestone’s gathering, Leah would finally call her parents. She shocks them by saying that she left her job after one day. But she also tells them that she has found worthy work.
When the phone call ends, Leah switches on TeeVee.
She is greeted with, “Hey girl, hey!”
24/7 Counter-Stories plays, and Leah is mesmerized. She sees herself on the screen.
Recapping the KOS rally, Rapunzel reports, “Earlier today, I spoke with Leah, who is a new resident of Milestone. She was one of hundreds attending the KOS youth-led gathering.”
“What would you like the Milestone community to know about you?” Rapunzel inquires.
“I want y’all to know that I accept your invitation to be a gift in your city.”
Leah would not return to Renewal, the company foolish to think itself invincible. Its faulty surveillance of Black cities, for its agenda, could not touch the truth. Renewal would crumble against Milestone’s dreaming and plotting people who narrativized their histories and possibilities. It could never tune into TeeVee. But its demise would be televised.
Jess Reed (she/her/hers) is a daughter, sister, friend, storyteller, and ice cream lover from Detroit, Michigan. She is also a PhD student in the Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education program at Michigan State University. She enjoys genuine conversations, asking deep questions, and archiving memories of people and places. To learn more about her creative journey, join her on Instagram at @rootsandhope and follow her blog, rootsandhope.com.
