You Are More Than Magic: The Black and Brown Girls' Guide to Finding Your Voice - Hardcover

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Minda Harts is the bestselling and award-winning author of The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table as well as Right Within: How to Heal from Racial Trauma in the Workplace. She is a highly sought-after speaker and thought-leader, frequently presenting on the topics of advancing women of color, leadership, diversity, and management. Minda is an assistant professor of public service of NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the founder of The Memo LLC, a career development company for women of color. In 2020, Minda was named by LinkedIn as the #1 Top Voice for Equity in the Workplace. She has a weekly career podcast for women of color, titled Secure the Seat. You Are More Than Magic is her first book for teens.

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Chapter 1

The Big Shake-Up

When I was eleven years old, I felt like I had no cares in the world.

I was living in sunny Southern California, and at the time the older of two kids; my youngest brother wasn’t born yet. I spent weekends playing with all my cousins and shopping at “Penny’s” with my grandmother. I didn’t think my life could get any better.

I had the pleasure of growing up with my mother’s side of the family (my mom is one of five sisters). I had never pictured my life without them a short car ride away. At the time, I had so many amazing Black women surrounding me with love, like my grandmother and great-grandmother, and my grandmother’s sister, my aunt Neicy. All of these amazing women made me feel like anything was possible for me.

The sense of belonging I felt at that age is something I wish I could bottle up and give to every young Black girl I meet. It’s a feeling I didn’t know that I would need to hold tightly to later in my life.

When I least expected it, my dad told us we were moving to Illinois, where he was going to start a church in the small town where he grew up.

How could he?! We were so close to our family in California, and I had never lived anywhere else. I mean—people dream about moving to California; I had never heard of a mass exodus to Illinois! I lived two doors down from one of my aunts, and I could walk to her house at will. I was on a personal campaign to get her to stop smoking cigarettes—she was down to a few cigarettes a day—I couldn’t leave now, we were starting to make real progress!

Now, you might be thinking, “Minda, what does your family leaving California have to do with this book?” And I am so glad you asked that question! That family move changed my life forever. If it had not been for that move from California to Illinois, I probably wouldn’t have written this book.

When I moved to that small, majority white town in rural Illinois, it was the first time I remember experiencing racism. It was the first time that I felt being a Black girl wasn’t beautiful. And, it was the first time I questioned whether I belonged. The lessons and stories that I will share with you in this book are about some of the hard lessons and ugly truths I learned as a Black girl in a small, white town that only trial and error could teach me.

If I’d had a book like this one back then, I might have loved the skin I’m in so much earlier in my life. Back then, I was going through the angst of being a teenager and feeling isolated, like many teenagers probably feel, regardless of race. But not all teenagers will experience being one of the only Black girls in a class full of white kids, nor will every teenager be called racial slurs. And not every girl will grow up in a country that treats people like her as second-class citizens because they are Black or brown. If I had a book like You Are More Than Magic when I was growing up, I might have been able to see my own worth way before I became an adult.

I don’t want you to move through life not knowing how amazing you are, just the way you are. Other people don’t get to dictate how you use your voice and how you choose to show up in this world as a young girl living in her color—living in your beautiful Black or brown skin. You need to know right now: You are more than magic at this very moment in time.

I Am Not Dora the Explorer

Before moving to Illinois, I lived in an area of California called the Inland Empire, which was racially diverse.

Representation was all around me: My community included Mexican kids, Native American kids, biracial kids, kids from all sorts of backgrounds. And I was never the only girl of color in my classroom. I was exposed to so many cultures living in our community, and I didn’t know anything different from diversity. At eleven, I thought the rest of the world was experiencing the same America as I was.

So, moving to a town that was far from diverse felt like moving to an entirely new country. When we finally got settled in Illinois, our family stuck out like a sore thumb. The town was predominately white. The second-largest group was Latinx, but they were still a small percentage of the population. I was thrust into a new experience of being “the only one.” I was the only Black student or student of color in my classes and on my block.

Quick Q’s: Have you ever been the only one? How did that make you feel?

For the first time in my life, I was the only Black girl. I had no idea how much being the only one would dictate how some of my teachers would treat me, or who wanted to date me, or the words my white friends would use because they heard them in a rap song. I quickly learned the beauty standards of rural white America, and they didn’t include a “Black is beautiful” campaign. (Now, don’t get me wrong—everybody wanted to be my friend. I was the new shiny Black girl—and it was “cool” for them to finally have a Black friend.)

When we arrived, we moved into a small, one-bedroom apartment that happened to place my family at one of the most affluent schools in town. Almost 99 percent of the students were white, and their parents or guardians were doctors, nurses, and teachers. My parents did not have those types of jobs, at the time, and we didn’t have that type of money. And with all these changes I was experiencing, it was the first time I felt ashamed of where we lived and what we didn’t have.

Before we moved to Illinois, I had no idea we were what some might consider “working poor.” In this new place, imposter syndrome started to creep in. And if you don’t know what imposter syndrome is—I will tell you more about it in later chapters.

Back in the day, we didn’t have a fancy name to call it, but I would soon understand the shame associated with being in the free lunch line when my friends were not. Or going on my eighth-grade graduation trip to Six Flags with less than twenty dollars in my pocket (even the drinks costs more than that) when most of my classmates had fifty dollars or more to spend. I learned how to navigate uncomfortable conversations about money and say, “Nah, I don’t see anything I want,” while secretly starving or hoping my friends would offer me some of theirs.

I wish I had known that not having souvenir and snack money had nothing to do with my worth as a person. I later learned that I have control over how I see and feel about myself. We will talk about that too as you work through this book.

When I lived in California, during lunchtime, my classmates each had different types of food inside their lunch box. And I had never been judged for the meals that my family would pack for me to eat. But in Illinois, I was suddenly being made fun of because of the fried chicken my mom packed for me at my new school.

One of my favorite things to eat was and is my dad’s fried chicken. And now that same meal had me wanting to crawl under the lunch table because of some of the stupid things my classmates would say about Black people and fried chicken. I didn’t know there was some lunch etiquette that I should have been aware of, until my white classmates pointed out the differences between my food and theirs. And not in a way that made me feel good about myself, but that left me sometimes hating my new life and my new friends.

I went from loving my life, because I felt such a strong sense of belonging, to feeling alienated and isolated. The other kids in Illinois had never had exposure to families that didn’t look like them, and I had to bear the...