Betty Before X

Content Warning: This section discusses anti-Black racism. It depicts scenes of racial discrimination and racist violence.

Betty is almost one year old when her Grandma Matilda takes her from her mother. When Matilda visits, she sees a bruise on Betty’s neck and takes her away. Betty’s mother, Ollie Mae, goes to Detroit and Betty stays with her aunt, Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae tells Betty that her mother is been a baby as well, too young to be a mother.

While returning from the grocery store, Fannie Mae and Betty see the bodies of a man and woman hanging from a magnolia tree. Before Betty closed her eyes, she sees the fear on her aunt’s face. Betty loved that specific tree and now associates it with the horrors of racially motivated murder.

They walk the long way home, and Betty wonders if the fruit from the grocer would rot faster than the bodies. At home, Betty asks Fannie Mae why they died that way. Fannie Mae says they had to trust God, who might be the only one with the answers.

Every night Betty repeats the same questions to herself: “What did I do to make my momma leave me?” and “What can I do to make her love me?” (7).