Hi,
I’m Dr. Niama L. Williams, author, poet, part-time professor and co-founder of Blowing Up Barriers Enterprises, but you can call me Dr. Ni.
Today I’m a little testy about something and I’d like to explain what and why. I’m more than a little tired, Ladies and Gentlemen, of films like Precious.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some Tyler Perry and occasionally some Oprah, but every Black woman who rises above does not do so out of supreme dysfunction and extreme poverty. Sometimes supreme dysfunction happens when you’re in the middle-class or the striving to be middle-class, and that is my story.
I didn’t go hungry as a child and my feet were never without shoes, but I knew well the lovely smell of pinto beans on the stove, simmering all day, and the tantalizing taste of creamed tuna on toast when we couldn’t afford chicken.
I also knew what it was to be raped by one older brother and beaten til I had knots on my head by another; I took it because I realized quickly that I was the youngest, the smallest, the only girl, and my mama really didn’t want to know that her boys were doing any of that to her baby girl.
I chose to take it and not tell because I looked down the hallway one morning at five years old and quickly understood that my mother couldn’t handle the extent of my brothers’ grief, anger and rage about the ugly divorce from our father.
I decided right then that I would do whatever I could, at all times, to make sure these three people were happy. If nothing else, it would keep me safe.
I was five, and I kept that job for 35 years, until I saw the approach of 40 and developed the long-promised to me by other Black women, eff-its. At 37 I decided my life was mine; I had my Ph.D. in African American literature, a master’s in fiction and nine manuscripts that needed publishing.
Today I am the author of 5 collections of poetry, four novels, one co-written with my significant other, and my dissertation on the work of survivor Toi Derricotte. I want you to know that you can come from any background, any dysfunctional whatever, and rise to the top. Cream, Ladies and Gentlemen, always does, and Dr. Ni only associates with the best.
Dive into my story. I share my blueprint for wiping doormat off my forehead and inscribing warrior on my soul. You can do the same. Let’s do it together.
On The Dotted Line 
