9

Thursday August 2, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR

Playing more than a “Black Woman” 

 So, I’ve been doing a lot of 
writing lately… Whenever 
my life gets real messy or 
whatever, I turn to writing 
to kind of just detach 
from 
everything 
that’s 
happening 
all 
around 
me. It’s like this super 
cathartic 
practice 
I’ve 
taken up over the years 
to decompress and flush a 
bunch of things from my 
head all at once. I’m never 
as well-spoken as I’d like to 
be in person. Like … okay, 
honestly? I’m literally the 
furthest 
possible 
thing 
from well-spoken, but it’s 
for this exact reason that 
I’ve come to write as much 
as I do. Outside the realm 
of academics, my writing 
doesn’t have to follow any 
specific form or tone. I can 
be as formal or as casual 
as I’d like to be, as flowery 
or as vulgar as is needed 
of me. I really end up just 
writing about anything, 
honestly.
 The other day I was on 
the phone with my mom 
and I asked her about 
the meaning of my name: 
Vinh 
Khang 
Huynh. 
Vinh means “eternal” or 
“infinite,” while Khang 
means 
“health” 
and 
“prosperity.” Huynh just 
represents a family name 
distantly linked to royalty. 
I wrote about my own 
name for damn near an 
hour before I remembered 
that I had a life outside of 
writing I had to care for. I 
just really liked thinking 
about the concept of some 
infinitely bountiful sense 
of well-being marked by 
the subtleties of royalty 
being carried on through 
my own name. Writing 
plummets me down deeper 
and deeper into this rabbit 
hole of self-reflection. I’ve 
come to learn that asking 
myself why I am the way 
that I am and why I do the 
things that I do is the most 
surefire 
means 
toward 
both 
understanding 
myself and learning to do 
the same for others. The 

two questions that’ve had 
me parading about in my 
feels the most have been: 
“Why do I choose to write 
so much?” and “What 
exactly do I gain from of 
all of it?”
 So, throwback to my 
first day of sophomore 
year of high school. I find 
the classroom where my 
first-period English class 
is being taught and go to 
grab a seat toward the 
back, next to the wall. 
Eventually, a woman walks 
in, introduces herself as 
Ms. Brush and welcomes 
us all to her English class. 
I guess she really wasn’t 
trying to shoot the shit 
that morning, given that 
she just skipped right 
past the whole icebreaker 
and 
syllabus-recitation 
tradition and had us all 
pull out pieces of paper. 
Our assignment for that 
first morning of class was 
to write a letter addressed 
to anyone, living or dead, 
about any possible topic 
under the sun. I wrote my 
letter to a friend of mine, 
knowing full well that he 
would never read it since 
I obviously had to turn 
it in at the end of class. I 
gave myself the freedom 
to write about every little 
thing on my mind, so much 
so that I forgot that it was 
an actual assignment.
 The next day in class, 
Brush sat at the front of 
the room and called our 
names out one by one 
as she handed back our 
letters. I don’t remember 
exactly what she told me, 
but I remember that she 
complimented me both 
on how my voice shined 
through the letter as well 
as my choice in expletives. 
I walked up to the room to 
grab my letter, flustered 
and embarrassed as all 
hell. I was never the type 
of student to be noticed for 
anything in class, so it felt 
strange to be recognized 
for something like my 
voice by someone I had 
just met the day before.
 As the term rolled on, we 
would be asked to submit 

these mini-reports on the 
stuff we were supposed to 
be reading for class. To be 
honest, I never actually … 
well … read the books or 
anything. I just went on 
to SparkNotes and half-
assed the assignment. In 
addition to these reports, 
we 
were 
also 
given 
the option to include a 
feedback portion at the 
end where we could write 
about our own thoughts 
and opinions on the book. 
The 
scammer 
residing 
inside 
my 
very 
soul 
obviously took the easy 
way out by forming the 
bulk of those book reports 
around what I thought 
of the books themselves 
since I obviously wasn’t 
going 
to 
provide 
any 
sort of detailed literary 
analysis or anything. To 
my surprise, Brush would 
leave a lot of her own 
feedback on the backs of 
my essays in addition to 
detailed critiques on my 
grammar and sentence 
structure. She offered me 
a lot of encouragement in 
these critiques too. She 
always told me to keep 
writing because there was 
something different and 
unique about my voice. 
I would later find out 
from friends that she was 
wondering what she could 
do to break me out of my 
shell and make me feel 
more comfortable with 
speaking out more, either 
in class or to her directly.
 See, the thing you 
really 
gotta 
know 
about Brush is that she 
understood people, often 
times without them even 
having to say a word. On 
top of all of that, she was 
explosive. Like an entire 
canister of Fourth of July 
fireworks going off all at 
once. She cursed like a 
sailor, but always made 
sure to blow her F-bombs 
away from the presence of 
administration... 

Read more online at 
michigandaily.com

 This is probably my 
third article on the lack 
of 
representation 
and 
positive representation of 
Black people in the world, 
but that just shows how 
much farther we have to 
go in our society to reach 
equal Black representation. 
Last weekend I had the 
opportunity to see the 
musical 
“Waitress”- 
it 
was my first time seeing a 
Broadway show in Chicago 
as all the ones I’d seen 
previously were in New 
York. I love theater and 
Broadway and was super 
excited to see my first show 
in Chicago.
 I went into the show 
blind, having no idea what 
the musical was going to 
be about, but I still loved 
it. The music, written 
by popular artist Sara 
Bareilles, was beautiful 
yet poppy and catchy. I 
enjoyed the modern-day 
storyline and the cute 
way the story was able to 
intertwine the motif of pies 
and baking throughout the 
show. But I’m not writing 
to comment on whether 
I liked the musical or not, 
because overall it was a 
great musical.
 As I watched the show, 
though 
I 
enjoyed 
it, 
something 
was 
still 
bothering me at the back 
of my mind, about race. 
It wasn’t that the entire 
audience 
watching 
the 
show was white. That 
was 
to 
be 
expected, 
and as a person being 
used to constantly being 
surrounded by only white 
people, 
it 
didn’t 
make 
me 
feel 
uncomfortable. 
It wasn’t the fact that 
the main characters and 

love interests were white, 
because that was also to be 
expected too.
 It was the roles the Black 
women 
were 
playing. 
Foremost, they were all 
supporting 
characters, 
but what upset me the 
most was that they were 
all just stereotypes. The 
main 
character 
was 
a 
30-something-year-old 
white 
woman 
named 
Jenna. Her best friend, 
Becky, was a large sassy 
Black woman who was 
always back talking and 
making 
sassy 
remarks 
to the amusement of the 
audience. 
The 
problem 
with this? She was just a 
caricature. The character 
she played was completely 
based 
off 
of 
all 
the 
stereotypes Black women 
try so hard to get away 
from. That we’re sassy, 
loud, rude and are always 
there with a comeback. 
Because 
shockingly 
enough, 
not 
all 
Black 
women are like that!!
 The only other prominent 
Black character in the 
show was the nurse who 
more or less fell into that 
same stereotype as sassy, 
always saying something 
smart and just a comic 
relief. Don’t get me wrong, 
the two women who played 
the parts were both great 
actresses 
and 
amazing 
singers as well as all-
around performers. But 
it was still disheartening 
to me to watch the show 
and know that as a Black 
woman trying to pursue 
theater, I would be limited 
to roles like these. That 
when I watch musicals, 
there are so many roles 
and characters I’d love to 

play but I’d never be able to 
because I’m not white. And 
I’m not talking about shows 
where the character has to 
be cast as someone who is 
white in order for the story 
to make sense contextually 
or historically. I mean roles 
where the character could 
probably be played by any 
race but I’d still never be 
given a chance to play it 
because I’m not white. 
So I’ll only be pushed to 
roles in which I’ll have 
to 
embody 
stereotypes 
that 
I’m 
otherwise 
working so hard to show 
the world that I, as well 
as other Black women, 
am 
more 
than. 
When 
I was younger I never 
consciously noticed things 
like this, as only seeing 
white representation was 
something that I was used 
to.
 There are musicals in 
which the majority of 
the cast are Black people 
and people of color, like 
“The Color Purple” and 
“Dreamgirls”, 
and 
it’s 
amazing to have those 
shows 
that 
feature 
so 
many Black artists and 
celebrate 
Black 
culture 
so beautifully. But I don’t 
want to have to have the 
mindset that if I want a 
lead in a show, I’ll have 
to be cast in one of those 
shows. I want to be able to 
play Jenna in “Waitress”, 
Heather 
Chandler 
in 
“Heathers”, 
Sophie 
in 
“Mamma Mia”, Rose in 
“Dogfight.” I don’t want 
to have to limit my dreams 
because of the color of 
my skin. I want to be 
appreciated as an actress 
because of my ability to 
play a character, not just 
fulfill a stereotype.

By EFE OSAGIE

MiC EDITOR

On why I write 

By KHANG HUYNH

MiC COLUMNIST

PLAYBILL 

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