‘living in integrity,’ for better or worse.

by Tahira Benjamin

resigning to not becoming who you really want to be is a choice, but I wouldn’t call it an easy one. it’s violent, riddled with self-abandonment, and it’s taxing, which you pay for with your peace of mind; the adults surrounding me in my childhood made this clear to me.

they traded their deeper purpose for a life of parenting, their autonomy, for a flimsy piece of paper their parents told them to get, and their backbones, for money from the man. tragically, they traded fear for true love, and perhaps, worse of all, imagination, for rigidity. they bought into the lie that they cannot be who they truly want to be, and resigned to existing as who they were told they must be–in all cases, in some shape or form, someone captive to white supremacy.

I felt the heartbreak in their words early on and decided that I didn’t want that for myself. and so, I began choosing to live in integrity. to me, living in integrity is a subtle but all-encompassing mastery of self; a consistent ‘checking in:’ “how does this land with me? how does this make me feel? does this align with who I want to be? …who do I want to be, anyways?” the answer wasn’t always apparent, but I knew under no circumstances would I pursue becoming a throat warrior for profit’s sake. and I anticipated that living in integrity would require a lot of energy, but, as far as I can see, coping with selling out requires a consistent cocktail of mood stabilizers to mute the accompanied sadness and anger into a dull, white noise–and anything is better than that. instead, I decided my main occupation in life, above anything else, would be to live in integrity, which, simply put, means loving, doing and being, despite the system and the fear it induces–the threat of ostracization and all.

one of my most important life experiences with this came in the summer of 2019 when I chose to do a reality television show called “Ghosted.” I chose to confront a friend from undergrad on national TV and explain that I cut all ties two years prior due to her and her family’s support of Trump in his first election. I saw how many people were having the same experience within their connections, and I hoped that we could model healthy confrontation on a topic rarely initiated by white people. long before we made it to set to film the episode, my integrity informed me that there would be no reconciling, not only because she chose to support a known racist, convicted rapist and scammer, but also because she was so proud of it that she shared a photo on Facebook attending his inauguration, “as a guest of Representative Claudia Tenney,” and another, at one of the inaugural balls. I sat on set for hours, explaining how dangerous this person is and no perceived benefit that this blond, white woman or her family sought to receive by making him president, would ever justify the suffering of people of all different identities–even her own, white women. I wasn’t showing up to ‘own the MAGAts,’ my integrity wanted her to know why my Black ass couldn’t be friends with her, and the media-trained storyteller in me wanted to have the conversation publicly.

as I anticipated, our episode was the most watched in the series. I also anticipated that, I, the ghoster, would be painted as the villain, but I did not anticipate that my reasons for doing so would be given zero consideration. Rachel Lindsay, the first Black Bachelorette and co-host of the show, shot me daggers for, “not sitting my friend down and educating her.” months later, during a press appearance for the show, Tamron Hall, another Black woman, verbally accosted me for similar reasons. I, the person who didn’t think it possible to feel safe in the company of someone whose entire family voted for a known racist, convicted rapist and scammer, was the horrible friend. It saddened me that two women who reminded me so much of my mom, aunts, cousins, and even myself, abandoned their own integrity to delight their producer-puppet-masters, and deliver their words with so much disdain; I expected that from the hundreds of commenters, but not them. if proclaiming that I, a Black woman, had neither the desire, nor the energy to explain how voting for a known racist, convicted rapist and scammer were a crime, then I was happy to be guilty as hell.

eight months after Tamron and Rachel read me my sentence, the media landscape began echoing nearly everything I had said on that set: “Black women don’t owe you shit. Black women don’t have to educate you. Black women are not your mammies. You are responsible for unlearning your own racism.” I was angry that it had taken four hundred years of white terrorism, ongoing genocide, and the televised murder of George Floyd to get here, but I wasn’t bitter about being early to the game–I was disappointed that two Black women with more life experience than me had allowed

themselves to be pit against me when I was taught that that wasn’t one of our rules. I made peace with the fact that everyone got their airtime and their soundbytes ‘holding my feet to the fire,’ because every single day, I wake up knowing that I have yet to betray my integrity, through it all.

choosing to live in integrity from such a young age means I’ve often been early to the game. whether I was finding a way to speak up when at odds with people I share blood with, or when one of my graduate school professors said the N-word without warning or hesitation, or when a slum lord in Los Angeles was taking advantage of me and dozens of tenants, or when my parents’ age mates bullied me behind their backs, and especially, when the apartheid-colony state of Israel started to genocide Palestinians, and UAE, the Sudanese, and India, the Kashmiris, I always find it in me to do the right thing, even if it terrifies me. living in integrity means I get to see, in real-time, that I love myself and humanity so much that I don’t abandon my principles. and it has also meant being put in the fire for ‘being the mouthy, Black girl with no respect,’ navigating broken connections-through-blood despite feeling unseen and unheard, and allowing my heart to be broken a million times over. living in integrity has filled my cup and comforted me as much as it has made me a pariah in my family, various schools, and for the most part, our current society. I live my life on the road, building connections in one place for some years, or even months, before opportunity or curiosity brings me to the next place.

people who know me from some part of my life will either say, “she’s always adventuring,” or “she’s running from something again,” and neither of those opinions bother me because they are not mine. lucky for me, living in integrity means I know the only person who has to approve of my life is me, so long as I am not harming myself or anyone else in living. and I no longer believe I have to be shy about knowing that. within thirty years, I’ve managed to do what some people choose not to do in seventy years, or ninety years: meet their humanity and love themselves through it. if this is my biggest accomplishment in life, I will die happy. I know myself as someone who owns their shit, and even calls it out – there isn’t a damn thing you can tell me about myself that I can’t tell you. shame isn’t something I subscribe to, therefore, it isn’t something you can make me feel. instead, I feel an immense gratitude for all of my choices, even the most confusing, ‘unsavory,’ and painful.

my integrity brings me home to myself, and lucky for me, I am my truest love, best companion, biggest advocate, and most consistent supporter…do you feel that way about you, too? I am so aware that, Amerikkkan-privilege and all, I am a slave under this system…can you admit this about yourself, too? I own my responsibility to free myself and people even more unfree than I am, mentally or geographically, as much as I can…do you, too?

I thank God every day that I’m living in my integrity…are you living in yours, too?

tahira is communications consultant and the founder and ceo of the unwritten club, designing journaling for a healthier you. explore tuc’s offerings, including journaling sessions based on Deconstructing Karen and White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism, here (https://www.theunwritten.club/book-your-session), and submit your journal entries to the unwritten club Substack.

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