What's In A Name?

It was my first homework assignment from acting class and I thought it would make a great blog. :)


Shoniqua Shandai Williams

    My mother was a flyy girl and my father a street king. They called him Shadu, for some reason or another, and he insisted on having the Sha live on. Unfortunately, he wasn't there when I was born and my mother under the influence of an epidural wrote Shoniqua, S-H-O-N-I-Q-U-A, on my birth certificate instead of the S-H-A my father wanted. Personally I think she did it out of spite because he wasn't there.
    My grandmother, the creative genius in our family, came up with my middle name. Shandai. I think it describes me rather well. Shandai, soft and feminine with a bit of a kick. Misleading and underestimated, it always takes several tries to figure it out. She's so much more than what you gather at first glance. Shandai. She sounds like royalty and I always consider myself to be a queen, but Shoniqua on the other hand.
    Shoniqua. I know it breaks my mother's heart, but I still am not that big a fan of it. I feel it's the cornerstone of the ghetto. You hear Shoniqua and you automatically think hood, and that's so not me, maybe in spite of my name even. I go out of my way to be what I feel is the epitome of ladylike and class. I have to try harder because any mistake I make is thrown back to the stereotype of my name.
    I've been changing my name since the fourth grade, maybe earlier. I've been Latasha, Latoya, and Cheniqua with a C-H-E. Charlie Cool, courtesy of my father. Bobbie, Rockie, Janet, Queen, and Oliver Rose.
    I can sort of gage how people will react prior to introductions. I love when old men or foreign people first hear it. They naturally assume it's exotic and I can see there minds absorbing it. Saying it. Spelling it. Sounding it out. "Shaw-ni-kwah", "Shoooo-neee-kuh." I live for those moments! Then there are the imbeciles, who are few and far between, but they stand out like a sore thumb. The ones who transform into the highest form of idiocy imaginable. Losing all connections with tact and home training, suddenly this Malibu Snow Bunny who's never seen a day west of La Brea morphs into this neck swiveling, eye rolling, professional hood rat and in the best impression of everything "urban" she's ever seen rolled into one gives me the "Awwwww shit!!! Whassup boo?"
    I refuse to let those mediocre interactions determine my self-worth. I've been changing my name since the fourth grade, maybe earlier, but now, recently I am Shoniqua Shandai, no Williams. I've lived in the hood. My mother was a single parent. I will never be a size 2. I wear my hair natural and Honey, catch me on a bad day I just might curse ya ass out. I love black men, watermelon, macaroni & cheese, but most of all, I love me. I'm uniquely and indefinably me and every stereotype in the world won't change that.