You Got Anything Stronger? was an unofficial read by the BIBC. We didn’t plan to read it, it just happened. In my opinion, it happened exactly the way it was supposed to. I finished it right before Black History month began, and therefore it led me into the month thinking about and looking at things differently.
Of course, years ago I read We’re Going to Need More Wine, and for several reasons. First of all, I didn’t always love Union as an actress. I watched her movies because she’s Black and I keep my eyes on Black actors, but I felt she was the same person in every movie. Then she did Being Mary Jane, and that’s when I felt like she finally came alive to me as an actor. I felt like she’d finally unlocked that thing that allowed her to show her depth as she portrayed different characters. From that point on, I’ve been a hardcore fan. If Gabrielle Union is in it, I’m watching it, if she releases a book, I’m buying it. I would’ve even bought more of the clothes in her New York & Co. line if I were tall enough. (She makes tall girl clothes, and I am not a tall girl.) Anyway, when We’re Going to Need More Wine came out, I pounced on it—the audio book of course. Not only is she a phenomenal storyteller, but her conversational reading tone is captivating. Like Kerry Washington and RuPaul, I could listen to Union for days. I loved We’re Going to Need More Wine, so I don’t know how I missed You Got Anything Stronger? when it came out, but things happen for a reason. As I mentioned before, it happened the way it was supposed to happen.
So yes, You Got Anything Stronger? pretty much picks up where We’re Going to Need More Wine leaves off. Union regales us with her real life experiences in all the different facets of life. She talks about life as a mother, daughter, “bonus” mother, girlfriend, wife, friend, sister, actor, and creator. Let me just say this, yes she discusses Zaya, but Zaya’s story is not the focal point. I’m sure when the book came out in the eye of the media storm about Zaya, people picked up just to find out what she had to say. There’s a whole chapter on Zaya, that’s not totally about Zaya. Why? Because Union’s intent was not to tell Zaya’s story. She simply shared her experience as a bonus mom to a trans child. That was it. The focus was on her as a bonus mom. Her experiences led her to realize that although in her first memoir she stressed that it’s important for a bonus mom to find her lane and stay in it, in her second book she shares that she learned sometimes we may have to change lanes in order to be what a child needs in the moment. Many of us believe that staying in our lanes as bonus parents means keeping the natural parents happy. We don’t realize how we prioritize ourselves and natural parents over the needs of the child, because we think keeping the peace is what’s best for the child. At the end of the day, just be what a child needs in the moment, regardless of how you earned a role in their life.
The chapters that hit me the hardest were the ones about being a Black woman in your forties and what it means to be Black in this country. I am now in my early forties having all kinds of interesting mental, emotional, and physical experiences. To hear another Black woman speak so frankly about these matters was comforting. I come from a line of brash women who don’t always want to sit around and dissect my introduction to every decade of my life. As soon as my mother and aunts reached their forties they all said, “The older you get, less fucks you give.” I heard it so much I looked forward to it, not only do I find that it’s true for me, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I didn’t hear anything else though. There was no discussion of agency over my body, how to move in intimate relationships, how to grow in friendships, or how to make adjustments in my parenting, and in my case, I am not the parent to an adult child. In her book Union talks about noisy bones and chin hairs. Women in my family are prone to increased beauty marks and facial hair as we age, and there’s little discussion about that as well. “Yeah we get more moles and get ready to start putting Nair on your chin,” is the extent of the conversation. Nobody talks about how they feel about it. Nobody mentions fearing aging or looking forward to it. It just happens, and we just move forward. I think that’s helped me to embrace aging, but it was nice to hear Union discuss the layers.
Finally, when I reached the end I realized she hadn’t saved the best for last, but rather the most important. Union does a deep dive into violence against Black bodies in the media. The chapter took me back to the George Floyd footage and how it affected one of my sisters who works in journalism. To this day I have not seen the video. When the story broke, I heard about it and that was enough for me. However, as a journalist, my sister had to be subjected to the images over and over and over. My insides hurt seeing how that video haunted my sister. I have since considered how we have been desensitized to not just violence on the screens, but how the violence of Black bodies is always available for consumption. Union points out a few specific details that hadn’t crossed my mind. For one, she reaches back in time to the writings of Phyllis Wheatley, and draws a connection between her discussion on public lynchings and the footage we see today. I feel like that connection may have crossed my mind at some point, but I’d never looked at it from the perspective Union presented. She offers that at one point in time lynchings entertained white people, but today we are encouraged to share and replay violent footage to get the attention of white people, to clue them in on how we are being treated. With that I said to myself, “why do we have to ‘clue them in,’ when they are often the ones committing the acts, so they are totally aware?”
I consumed this final chapter entering February of 2025, in a time of unadulterated chaos and confusion in the country I live in. Though this memoir was released four years ago, it proved how literature can be ahead of its time, and/or stand the test of time. Everything she said in that chapter, unfortunately is still relevant today. I loved that fact that it made me think. I hate the fact that we are still facing the same tragedies since the times of Phyllis Wheatley. We’ve all been saying that Black women are tired and therefore we are resting. This last chapter reiterated that thought for me. Union admits to participating in the sharing of the nasty footage before realizing how harmful it was, but honestly I didn’t do the same. I did sometimes watch some of it. I think by the time Floyd was murdered though, I was overwhelmed and unable to give my energy to watching it, let alone sharing it. So our rest includes not sharing footage that harms us in order to get white people right.
You Got Anything Stronger? was accurately named and I enjoyed every minute of the audio book. I hope that Union releases another memoir to further discuss the peaks and valleys of Black womanhood. Her insight is eye-opening and refreshing. Of course, she get’s a full five stars from me.
]]>