Some say it’s rude to ask a woman her age and that a lady never tells it. It’s considered an impolite social custom and, in some cases, offensive given the realities of ageism. But today’s my birthday and I invite you to guess mine.

Consider it an exercise in age transparency. Here are a few clues I hope will get you closer to the number.

Unfortunately, I’m older than Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. The four little girls were murdered in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963. Collins, McNair and Robertson were 14 years old. Wesley was only 11.

I take no pleasure in saying I am older than el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. Also known as Malcolm X, he was a human rights activist and revolutionary thought leader assassinated on February 21, 1965, in front of his wife, Betty Shabazz, who was pregnant with twins, and thus, four of his six daughters. He was 39 years old.

I’m not proud to say this, but I am older than the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We’ll celebrate his birthday two days from now by flooding timelines with his prophetic words and passionate speeches followed by acts of community service. The peace-loving civil rights leader and Baptist minister was assassinated on April 4, 1968. He was only 39 years old.

It pains me to say I am older than Fred Hampton. In coordination with the FBI, he was assassinated in the early morning hours of December 4, 1969. He was the deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party and founded the Rainbow Coalition. After police fired their guns more than 90 times, the 21-year-old was dead.

This means I am also much older than Lil’ Bobby Hutton. The first member of the Black Panther Party was killed in West Oakland during a “police confrontation” two days later. He was only 17 years old.

He, like Emmett Till, Johnny Robinson, Eddie Moss, Larry Payne, Vivian Strong, William Wright, James Stokes, James Earl Green, Randolph Evans, Michael Carpenter, Cornell Warren, William Green, Phillip Pannell, Nicholas Heyward Jr., Dwight Stiggons, Donta Dawson, Antonio Butler, Keith Daughtry, Corey Ward, Michael Ellerbe, Timothy Stansbury, James Brisette, Ellis Woodland, Brandon Moore, Lawrence Allen, Robert Mitchell, Aiyana Jones, Kiwane Carrington, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Cameron Tillman, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice and Fanta Bility, will be forever young.

Despite the media’s attempts to adultify them, they were all small children and teenagers killed by police and fellow American citizens, who deputized themselves, though unarmed.

Regrettably, I’m older than Jordan Neely, who was choked to death on a New York subway train on May 1, 2023. Daniel Penny was acquitted on December 9, 2024, of criminally negligent homicide. Neely was 30 years old.

Sadly, I’m also older than Robert Brooks, who was brutally beaten to death by fourteen correctional officers in Marcy Correctional Facility in Marcy, New York, while handcuffed on December 9, 2024. He was 43 years old.

Now, one year older, I am thinking of what the number is supposed to mean to me. I have never had an allegiance to or aspiration toward a particular decade. While I certainly want to “age gracefully,” I want my life to be full of meanings of my own choosing—not merely measured in years or bracketed by white supremacist brutality.

Also, Maya Angelou pointed out that there is a difference between aging and growing up. “Most people don’t grow up. Most people age.” She continued, “They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging,” she explained.

She’s right. Aging is obvious; maturity is optional.

Consequently, I want to mature in my understanding of personhood and love for all of God’s children. I want to bear an even more passionate witness against the violence of empire, colonialism and white supremacy. I want to grow up and into the power of the raceless gospel and be full of the spirit of somebodiness.

I aim to embody the fullness of my first name: Starlette. Thus, there will be no dimming of my light or downplaying of the legacy I hope to leave in memory of those who lost their lives or their sense of self due to the senseless violence of police brutality and/or white supremacist terrorism.

I can only hope for more time, which wasn’t the case for so many leaders and children within the African American community. Like them, my focus remains on making my life count for something before my number is up. Speaking of which, how old am I, or does it not matter anymore?

 

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