Page 32 - 2019 EMERGING WRITERS FELLOWSHIP ANTHOLOGY1

RACCOON

Scavenger.

Chameleon of scenario, wearer of masks.

Pilfering through what has been thrown away.
Survivor.

***

When the email of congratulations popped into my inbox, a vague discomfort settled in

my stomach. The emerging writers fellowship application had come with a bulleted list of
qualifications. Unpublished. LGBTQ or writers of color. I don’t remember the rest. I

applied with an internal wince, even after all these years still unsure what was mine to
claim.

Later, I told someone of the award.
“You? A writer of color?”

He chuckled and shook his head.
“You’re going to be the whitest writer of color they’ve ever seen,” he said.

I considered backing out. But this was supposed to be the year of uncomfortable, of push

and growth. I packed the car with snacks and water the way I used to when my children

were children, back before our family broke and I was left to figure out who I was with no
one standing beside me. To let the world in, one must first open the door.

***

Proximity, a film critic said during an interview on the New York Times podcast The Daily,
exists at the crux of the Hollywood Racial Reconciliation Fantasy. The problem, he

asserts, is that in feel-good films like Green Book and Driving Miss Daisy, the colored

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