“Annalise, Annalise!”

It is rare for me to purchase a book and actually sit down or make time to read it immediately but my love and affinity for Viola Davis had me order her book as soon as I (late) figured out she wrote one. Let’s just say her book arrive to the RV Wednesday, October 5 and after reading the first 25 pages, I knew I would finish it before the weekend would end. And I did.

Viola starts her book off by sharing heart-racing scenes from her childhood where she was literally fighting for her life against classmates determined to make her life a living hell merely because she was a nappy-headed Black girl. As I read the words across the page, I remembered so much of being chased and picked on in school because I was one of those Black girls growing up. I didn’t quite fit in with the other Black kids that were doing things I often couldn’t do because of how my parents raised me but then definitely didn’t fit in with the white or Mexican kids because well, I’m not white or Mexican. Being hyperaware of my Blackness meant being hyper aware of moving through a world where I was not affirmed or the model of beauty, no matter how much my mother told me so.

Viola leads us to when she sat down and was having a conversation with Will Smith during the filming of Suicide Squad and he asks her, “Who are you"?” She asks him in some way what does he mean by that because she is a grown woman and definitely knows who she is at this point in her life and then Will asks again, “No, but who are you?” Although for Viola, this was a pivotal ‘aha’ moment, it touch my heart to know even as an adult and accomplished actress like THEE Viola Davis, she too was trying to reinvent or figure out who she was.

I am 35 this year and could have told you exactly who I was and who I wasn’t when I was 25. or at least who I thought I was. But seriously, Kennae, who are you?

“No, but who are you?”

I am an avid reader, in fact I have an extensive reading library even after having given away so many books over the years. There are times Spirit guides me to purchase a particular book. Sometimes this is because it continues to pop up in various ways or methods in my life, like when I read '“The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” or “Warrior Goddess In Training”. What is rare for me is to order the book and begin reading it immediately, unless I am needing it for a class or training. For this reason there are very few books in my library I have completed compared to those I have ordered and are awaiting their turn to be picked up.

One of my go-to books that I read over and over again is from my beloved ancestor Maya Angelou, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” because little Maya expresses my love for words, language and the power of what we say. In case you haven’t read it, Maya was sexually assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend and tells her brother, Bailey. After Bailey tells others a few days or even weeks go by and her mother’s boyfriend is killed. Young Maya believes he was killed because she told someone, she believes it was the power of her words. So she opts to go mute for 8 years.

I find myself reading more spiritual and healing books by the nature of my work in the world and my deep passion and interest in trauma and the various healing methods that can be applied to the living before it manifests physically within the body as mental health or physical health maladies. I say that to say, outside of Maya Angelou’s book and maybe the Biography of Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey, I do not own many biographies or memoirs.

I love all things Viola Davis and the incredible power she brings to the screen in whatever role she plays. From her role in the Help, to Annalise Keating in How To Get Away With Murder, to Rose in Fences, her characters always resonate with my soul as a Black woman and the demanding ways life oftentimes forces me to show up and be seen. So reading Viola’s book, “Finding Me” was like sitting in a masterclass and listening to an auntie speak directly to me about life.

“Where’s your voice?” Emiliy was shaking at this point. She said she didn’t know. Alan insisted, “You must know. Who took your voice?”

This quote was just slightly before the halfway point of Viola’s book but as I read about her cast mate Emily, I heard the same question pull at my heart. “Where is your voice?” I am someone who shows up in the world and takes space without permission, so I am often viewed as very confident, vocal and intentionally labeled as INTIMIDATING. But much like Viola, I am and have always been painfully shy. Not shy because I feared people but because so often there was this enforced ideology from society and the experiences I had in life that I would not or could not be seen in my wholeness because it wasn’t acceptable and would be rejected. Combine this with my belief in the power of words, distain for small talk and the way society demanded me to entertain, prove or shine for others, I just don’t come across as some one who could be shy. The reality which Viola touches on as a theme weaved throughout the book is society (and specifically for her, the acting industry) does not make space for Black women to be soft, vulnerable, shy or reserved. Loud, yes. Outgoing, yes. Ghetto fabulous or ratchet even, acceptable. But not shy.

In the pages of her book, I felt she reached right into my head and heart and pulled parts of my own story out and put it in her book, even naming how difficult it was to really explore or navigate LOVE after having grown up with toxic and abusive images and examples of it. I won’t give the book away because you should most definitely read it for yourself but I will say this book has touched me in a way that little 5-year-old Kennae needed to be seen, affirmed and hugged. I love Viola Davis even more and cannot wait for the day I’m able to meet her in person. Yes, I am putting that out there right now.