Putting it all on the line at Shades of Mahogany: A Male Showcase
The story of the wrong protagonist at the Black male scholarship pageant.
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It was on a Tuesday that I learned that there are three reasons to sign up for a Black male scholarship pageant. I sat in the Malcolm X Student Lounge during my second year at the University of Texas at Austin. A sister in Umoja, the student organization hosting the event, gave me a spiel about their upcoming pageant, Shades of Mahogany: A Male Showcase. You sign up for such an event to get better known in the campus Black community, improve your public speaking skills, or potentially take home a nice chunk of cash. As it happens, I didn’t need those things. I felt comfortable in my social standing and had long gotten over my stage fright. If I were to win, the money would be nice, but it wouldn’t be life-changing. Shades of Mahogany had little to offer me. I sent my application the next day.
I didn’t know a lot about serious pageants. I still don’t, but I didn’t then either. To my knowledge, they entail an opening dance number, an intro speech, a talent portion, a “final walk,” and far more preparation than anticipated. Upon arriving at the small classroom for our first 8:00 PM practice, we were congratulated on our acceptance into the pageant. I do suspect we were the only applicants, but it was an honor nonetheless.
The other contestants were all familiar to me, brothers I had met throughout my first year at UT, a school whose Black student population at the time in 2017 was ~4.8%. Almost all were on-and-off-again members of the Student African American Brotherhood with me. There was also one stranger, Jack, who had a chilling aura. The coordinators told us that we were to meet twice a week from 8:00 to 10:00 PM for two months, with extra practices baked in as needed. As they clicked through the slides on the classroom wall, the schedule weighed heavily on me. Fitting those recurring events in my calendar was painful, and apparently, the event itself was to take place on my 20th birthday.
Already filled with regret, I looked around, modestly excited for the sense of competition between we eight, proud young Black men. A little after that first practice, one of the guys, Mugo, quit. So we seven, proud young Black men set off to vie for the coveted title of Mr. Shades of Mahogany.
Aside from the name, I don’t think much is inherently ridiculous about Shades of Mahogany. It’s not the pageant's fault that my college self had the inability to say no to opportunities and a love for overextending himself. The event is set up to be a nice and rewarding vehicle for personal growth. Each contestant was given a number. I was #1, and aside from Contestant #2, a tall brother named Ore, who I suspect also didn’t really want to be there, each of my “pageant brothers” seemed to have a compelling personal reason to sign up.
I figured I would have the toughest time beating Contestant #3 Gary, better known as Rollerskating Gary. He was a little man with the voice of Barry White, and on random days during the week, you could find Gary and his boombox rolling and breakdancing on the gold brick road on campus. Hat tricks, skating, skilled with a half dozen instruments—he was a Roll Bounce Renaissance Man. Every time I looked at Rollerskating Gary, he reminded me of a hungry young actor looking for some Hollywood executive to give him a break. It seemed to me that he had something he wanted to prove. My brilliant bit of character deduction was informed when, once, during practice, Gary announced, “I want to be one of the big names here, I want to be somebody that everyone in the Black community knows.”
Then there was #4 Jack. The youngest of us, whose intensity told me he wouldn’t be anywhere without good reason. He would either destroy us all, no contest, or disappear into the night before the competition began.
#5 Aaron was a good-natured guy with your classic stage fright story. #6 Gio was a boisterous man. The kind of guy that made mutual friends say, “Oh, I love Gio,” whenever his name was brought up. He rarely showed the pain I thought him to carry. And lastly, #7 Keelan, was an unassuming, pious young man with a solid singing voice.
Everyone seemed to be betting something on the event—pride, fear, or some vague hope. Each of them stood with admirable purpose. I felt like the least important man in the room—or perhaps second, after Ore. But I, the second least important man in the room, felt a bit out of place among the others who seemed to have a proper reason to be there.
The practices mostly consisted of Jarvis, the reigning Mr. Shades of Mahogany, yelling to get us stage-ready.
“Do better! Get some damn sense,” he would say to most things. I would run through meetings and classes all day before arriving exhausted in the practice auditoriums. Then I would spend hours learning about a skill set I already had.
We focused the first few weeks on practicing our intro speeches. Jarvis was ruthless with Aaron and Keelan as they stumbled through diction exercises. Jarvis held the official title of “pageant father.” No one was safe from scrutiny. A charismatic and kind man in general, on occasion, Jarvis would dip into an authoritarian way of doing things. I thought this was particularly silly since we were all effectively the same age.
At times, he’d have us rerun an entire exercise if one of us annoyed him.
“Why doesn’t Jack have to do this?” Ore said during an exhausting rerun of a stage drill.
“Ore! You—you worry about yourself,” Jarvis said, unsure of the answer himself, as Jack sat quietly off-stage.
In part, Jarvis liked Jack along with Rollerskating Gary and me as we were the most experienced performers—I having had spent much of my young life as a dew-eyed public speaker for local political and activist causes. Day after day, we’d do countless drills. Terse conversations abound, and boisterous Gio and I were always on the same page about hating being bossed around. Once I leaned over to good-natured Aaron after practice to complain about our harsh treatment. He looked at me with genuine confusion. “I guess,” he said, “I mean, Jarvis is just kind of doing what most coaches would do.” It occurred to me that I never really played sports. I put those after pageants on the list of things I would avoid in the future.
Another fun thing about scholarship pageants is that the contestants source the prize money. I would head home to my cramped college apartment and post online, soliciting funds from friends and family. I always imagined I would save the please-my-loved-ones-give-me-your-money card for a more desperate situation. But I wasn’t about to pay the fee out of pocket.
At the end of one practice, I dashed from the stage to my backpack in order to catch the West Campus Bus Line. In my hurry, I cracked my headphones under my heel. I was officially in the negative.
“You gonna bust out the skates Gary?” I asked when we moved on to workshopping our talents. Rollerskating Gary rebuffed the idea. Never one to be pigeonholed, he hopped on stage with a giant keytar he brought from home.
“Clap your hands, everybody—if you got what it takes,” he said, moving his arms over his head during his first rehearsal of it. The Umoja sisters started, and the rest of us joined them. Gary hit a sweet keytar lick, and together, we created the nice rhythm of what would be our inevitable defeat.
Alternatively, someone allowed Aaron’s stage talent to be cooking. With a skill set that included being physically stronger than the rest of us, studying government, and apparently cooking, Aaron didn’t have much that worked well on stage. He suggested he use his three-minute slot to talk through a recipe.
“Sure,” Jarvis said, throwing his hands up and walking away with a deep exhale.
The rest of us were performing poems, dances, or songs of some kind. I had been wanting to write slam poetry, and Shades provided me a good opportunity for that. But I ran out of time and used one I found online.
In a very Santa-is-not-real-moment, the Umoja sisters running the event gave us a list of the potential final questions before the show. Did the U.S. provide enough relief efforts to Hurricane Harvey? Why did you decide to attend a Primarily White Institution over a Historically Black College or University? “Oh hell yes,” I thought. I believed then that nuanced political takes were my main social value. Kicking back while my pageant brothers practiced their speeches, I rehearsed answers for ⅞ of the possible questions. There was a boring one that simply asked: Who is your role model and why? I didn’t bother coming up with something for that one.
With nine days out until the pageant, I paced around my neighborhood. I was watching my brothers in the pageant improve, and my other friends not locked in the Thunderdome produce great art. Even with the pleasant moments I shared with the contestants and organizers, I still felt like I was wasting my time. Every ticking minute spent staring at the clock during practice burned into my sternum. I was 19, but I felt like I was running out of time. In my mind, I decided then that the pageant would be a first step on my staircase to some vague greatness.
The exact words escape me, but I recall sitting on a bench under a dull street light. “Ten years… starting on my birthday,” I wrote in my journal. “Win that damn pageant, and take the next decade to show the world what you can do.”
At the last dress rehearsal, I walked into the auditorium to see #7 Keelan, the pious one, nail the song he had been struggling with. Throughout the entire process, he had been having trouble performing in front of people, and only rarely did we get a glimpse of the great singing voice he apparently had. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of pride for my pageant brother.
The final note sailed throughout the room, and I hit one of the guys on the shoulder as we both smiled at David conquering Goliath.
“Can you turn the recording up on the next round?” Keelan asked the tech booth. Apparently, he had opted to lip-sync a recording of his own voice. Jarvis, having realized it was too late to mold us all into star quality, allowed it. I chuckled to myself at the revelation, knowing that Rollerskating Gary and the intense Jack were still my greatest threats.
Boisterous Gio’s smile looked a bit duller during our last few rehearsals. He was developing a cold and would have to leave town before the last practice. In a tone only slightly off from his usual, he let us know that his brother had passed.
“Big bro, although I’m sick and my voice keeps going in and out, I’m giving everything I have for Shades of Mahogany to make you proud! Rest easy my superhero,” he said in a post.
The pageant was a day away. And everyone was carrying something onto that stage.
“I won’t be seeing you guys until the day of the show so listen up,” Jarvis texted. “First, Gio do not talk. Rest your voice. Everyone, remember to take a second to enjoy the moment. If you mess up on one thing, come back harder on the next,” he said. “No matter what happens, you have done it.”
On my birthday, we huddled up in the dressing room, and Jarvis again confessed his pride in us. For all the trouble, there was no denying his care for us and the wider community. He glanced at each of us one last time and sent us out to the dark auditorium.
Cheers assaulted the walls as we walked through the audience from the back entrance to the front stage. Hitting our marks, we began our choreographed dance to Dangerous by Busta Rhymes, which I can honestly say was not in my skill set prior. The loose theme for the pageant was “Black Superheroes.” During a break in the number, we each popped out to spit a verse that represented our chosen fictional hero. I started:
“Time to light you up and electrify,
Ain’t no villain escapin’ my eye,
I’m the baddest hero on the block,
‘Cuz I’m superhero Static Shock!”
Ore was next with Luke Cage, then Gary with Green Lantern. Jack picked a villain.
“I’m Deathstroke,” Jack said as the audience fell to a hush.
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After a costume change, I was tasked with starting the show off proper with my intro speech. I walked out to Black Man in a White World by Michael Kiwanuka, as I had recently read the Autobiography of Malcolm X.
I came to the edge of the stage, and the music faded away.
“They say that I am a man of extravagance. I don’t know; I don’t really see it,” I said, flourishing my scarf. “What I do see is a contradiction in my passion. On the one hand, you have a devotion to combating institutional racism—on the other, you have comedy.”
I used what was then my public speaking voice, which has since been described as “deeper than necessary.” In those two minutes, I said many things that I thought made sense at the time.
Without a hint of irony or humility, I said, “And here I stand before you, not to be the next Doctor King, the next Malcolm X, or even the next John Oliver, but the first Jade Fabello, your contestant #1. It’d be my honor to be your 2017 Mr. Shades of Mahogany.”
The crowd cheered as I bowed my head. I felt good about my chances of wearing the crown, and I forced the image of that staircase to greatness to sharpen in my mind. There were stars above that this pageant would somehow help me step towards.
Gary strolled out to Rapper’s Delight by The Sugar Hill Gang. He moved like he was a Transformer, shifting parts of his body without affecting the rest. Gio brought the largest crowd, who cheered him on wildly. Like Michael Jordan, playing through an illness, Gio brought out his A-game.
The talents rolled through. Ore danced a Nigerian shoki, his swagger and charisma proving him to be a legitimate contender. Gary’s versatility did indeed do him well as the entire crowd clapped along. Jack, Gio, and I did our poems. Aaron cooked. And Keelan sang.
The indisputably worst part of a pageant is the final walk. Basically, the contestants come out one by one, hold a forced smile, and take one step every four seconds, doing an awkward wave as they travel all the way from the rear audience auditorium entrance to the stage. I questioned the tradition in practice and asked if we could shorten it. Jarvis refused.
Before I stepped out, I decided to switch to a more reasonable smize (smile with eyes), removing the total number of serial killer glares the audience had to witness down by one. For what felt like half an hour, and what was actually not far off, the rest of the guys followed. The audience would alternate between cheers, chuckles, and whispers, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Jack seemed in particular pain as he grinned across the stage. As soon as another contestant reached the back curtain, they would join the rest of us in clowning whoever was coming next. While each of us did what we could to make our own walks bearable, the snail-in-traffic speed of our pageant father was hard to accept. “This is ridiculous,” I thought as Jarvis took the entirety of Pretty Wings by Maxwell to walk down the theatre aisle.
We seven, proud young Black men stood up there with plastic smiles. Jarvis and the other host approached me with the final question first. The light shining on us was bright hot.
“Who is your role model and why?”
With an internal sigh, I gave an agreeable answer about how my mother was always there for her boys through tragedy left and right, to respectable applause. My mother would later ask why I said that. She figured I should have said something more interesting.
First was unlikely at this point. Had it all been for nothing? Probably. I remember thinking, if only I had just secured a job that paid around $12 an hour, that way I could have guaranteed making the $1000 with the amount of time committed.
I zoned out as the other boys answered their questions. A white streak flatlined through my head. I held a pained and hopeful smile, and the murmurs of the crowd carried the beat of anticipation.
The votes were tallied. Paper rustled.
“Your 2017 Mr. Shades of Mahogany is…
Contestant #7 Keelan!”
The crowd erupted, and I laughed at how wrong my predictions were. I congratulated the boy who did technically sing, and the rest of my pageant brothers. We did, for what it’s worth, put on a good show.
I took a step on that mental staircase I had been building—the one that would lead to my cosmic decade of greatness—and my foot fell right through. “Huh,” I remember thinking. “I’ve really got to do less stuff.”
Eight years on, there’s a part of me that wants to say that the pageant was a waste of my time. Yes, it’s true that my $300 prize for third place was less than the entrance fee, meaning I lost my friends and family $100. And yes, it is also true I haven’t had a recent meaningful interaction with any of the pageant family outside of Mugo, the guy who quit.
But there was a moment when Pretty Wings finished before the final questions began. Apparently, we were laughing at each other loudly enough behind the curtain that the audience could hear us. Soft blue lights rained down on us as Jarvis scolded us pageant brothers one last time, bringing on a final round of stifled chuckles and falling over each other as the tenor of our laughter pressed against the walls. To my recollection, Jarvis let a smile slip, too.
The impulse in me that wants to dismiss the pageant is the same one that tried to force it to be the launching pad for a decade of moving at Mach speed. My inability to be satisfied is actually what brought me to that stage in the first place.
So, I’ll take it for what it was. Everything that it was.
One night where six proud young Black men, and one flailing young Black idiot with poor time management, did the best they could with what they had—putting it all on the line at Shades of Mahogany: A Male Showcase.
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That’s all for today, gang. I know we usually talk about writing. But I wanted to share some of my creative non-fiction. This is an old piece I dusted off and finally finished after several years. Glad for it to see the world. Thank you for taking the time with it! If you are reading this and were involved in Shades of Mahogany 2017, much love to you. Y’all were real ones.
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Amazing, thank you for sharing. You always have something interesting to say.
Always a treat to get to see some of your creative non-fiction. You’ve got such a distinct voice and your singular sense of humor stands out on the page. Thanks for sharing!