The Traditions of Black Death & Rage

This is a longer than normal, pretty heavy piece, just a FYI.

I remember the day I ‘knew’ beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was a leftist. I wasn’t always like this-I once upon a time believed in silliness like ‘reverse-racism’, or how ‘black folx could be racists too’ and — listen, let’s not reflect on 19-year old Vanessa. There’s a story to tell and a point to be made.

The night of Michael Brown’s death is when it reverberated through my soul just how much people didn’t care about black bodies, let alone the stability of black women. I was working at Mountain Jack’s in West Lafayette when it all happened, and the fear that gripped my heart was….a lot. I called my friend Janai in California in tears because I didn’t know what else to do. I was terrified not just because my home town was being ravaged by bloodthirsty cops and angry protestors: my younger sister, 10 years my junior, had to pass through that exact area on a regular to and from high school. I called my Dad to the same panic. My grandmother to no answer. I was having what I’m pretty sure was a panic attack while having to still manage waiting my tables which my entire livelihood was 500% dependent on without alerting them that I was having a panic attack. The moment of reckoning hit when a white woman coworker of mine callously saw me in my state, called me ‘dramatic’ and said very calmly:

I don’t know why you’re worried about your sister. She’s not like the other black people out there, so she’s going to be fine. Honestly I wouldn’t worry if I were you because you aren’t like those protestors and you’re not going to commit crimes then be all confused on why you got arrested and tear gassed.

The fury of my ancestors awakened that day. I’m impressed I wasn’t sent home and I made any money that night. That girl though? She was. We didn’t work matching shifts from that point forward because I ‘scared her’ that night. Looking back, I think I should’ve been told ‘go in, it’s OK to call this one in.’

She thinks I don’t know that she still follows my Instagram.

The thing is, this story isn’t…special. It’s not unique.
It’s the norm. I can assure you that any black woman or colleague that you have has a story akin to this. And every time that it happens, we have the same influx of support followed by falloff and being forgotten. Many people aren’t understanding or aware of the roots that we endure every time this happens. And I can promise: it is every time. That night that Mike Brown was killed was the one in many instances of being tired. Mike Brown’s death is just where I couldn’t deny it anymore. The anger had been bubbling but I was just done. I’ve been struggling with putting this piece together outright because there’s just….so much that goes into a day in the life of a black woman.

And note, I said black woman.

It’s more than just being policed on who I date, or how I look, or being told I’m never enough, it’s the world around us as a whole. It suffocates. It strangles. It’s the constant nagging voice in the back of your head that says you will never succeed at any of this, despite proof that we can, have been, and will continue to be successful. Don’t write it off as ‘oh, so you suffer from self-doubt?’-it’s a constant, never ending flux of questions that will never see answers because people will gladly fall over themselves to rationalize our abuse and downplay our anger.

We aren’t allowed anger: when we cry out about the injustices of our systems and the pain it inflicts upon us to see black bodies in the streets, knowing that one day, I too could be the next Sandra Bland, we are cursed and called irrational. We are told to ‘protest peacefully anyway’, as though we have done anything but. That we don’t need to worry, we’re not like ‘those other Black people’-those other Black people are still Black. But if I point out that I shouldn’t have to change my entire personality, appearance,and mannerisms to be white adjacent to just *not die*, I am deemed hateful, spiteful, cold. To speak as a black woman is to engage an immediate fight with double standards. I am too angry to be heard, too delirious to be taken seriously, too much of a bitch to be trusted. I am angry, therefore I am wrong.

We aren’t allowed sadness: when we say we are tired, and that we can’t engage today, our peers and colleagues encourage, bordering on beg us, to still fight and endure. We are told ‘if we don’t speak now, then our voices will be lost’-as though we are somehow unaware of this. We are parroted talking points about how it must be us that do the educating. It must be us who care. It must be us who do the heavy lifting so that ‘people can really understand’……with nary a care as to how much it wears us down or people refuse to listen. And when we respectfully decline, we are scolded for ‘giving up’, for not showing that we care enough. The thing is: our care is never enough, if we aren’t too angry like stated above, we’re too sad. I am sad, therefore I am weak.

Our everything becomes confusion, anxiety, exhaustion.

It becomes confusion as we scold and curse the white men who would look at a picture of 25 black men and say, loudly on LINKEDIN of all places, that this picture of dignified black people looks like thugs. This is the constant pushback we have to the path of success…..but then claw and fight for our inclusion when black men tell us to shut up because Dave Chappelle, whose standup steadily is rooted in misogynoir and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, said A Thing about black men being shot by cops and that means he has permission to treat black non-men’s bodies like joke tools. You see, #blacklivesmatter…..until we have the nerve to ask YOU to do better. Then our lives are miserable, petty, boring, and purposely antagonistic. We ‘just need something to complain about.’

It’s raising money for kids with cancer on my live stream and feeling like the worst person in the world for asking for more money for Bail Project, Color of Change, TREVOR Project, etc…..but also feeling like the worst person in the world if I don’t support causes in which I’m a direct member. I shouldn’t feel bad that as a black queer woman, I want to raise money for black and queer causes. But I also shouldn’t have to worry that people will view me as greedy/selfish if I ask them to ease my fear of being the next statistic. And let’s not delve into the expediency in which people will gladly declare children and animals as more worthwhile to protect than real Black human bodies. Don’t tell them that some of those kids are Black, or some of those pet rehabilitators are Black, while they tell you about how most Black pet owners are abusers…..I said I wouldn’t get into it.

It’s watching as the murder of black men is defined as absolute injustice, unhinged, uncalled for, disgusting…..but the murder of black women is reduced to a ‘teachable moment.’ It’s knowing you can’t saying anything about it without being labeled ‘divisive’ or ‘derailing the topic’. It’s siting at your desk debating saying something about it because it needs to be talked about, but you already know what the response is going to be. You will either be bullied into silence or convince yourself into silence. Breonna Taylor’s murderers are still loose. Who cares? Black women, mostly…..but there’s something to be said that the general consensus is ‘who cares’.

It’s watching as white editors and ‘finance specialists’ work tirelessly to prove that black charitable orgs are not worth their weight. When certain cancer-centric organizations only use 40% of their proceeds statistically and consistently, it isn’t any issue and ‘we all have to take a hit’, but when Minnesota Freedom Fund accrues $35 million with a mission to bail out wrongfully arrested protestors, we all need to know where that money is going yesterday. Being a black woman in this mess is watching as even fellow black people hop on this train and say ‘where is that money going?!’ and knowing that if you speak up as someone not only entrenched in charity work, but also directly involved in the charity space, there’s still a 50/50 chance you’re accused of giving passes for ‘fuckass reasons.’

It’s calling out larger scale problems around sexual assault in any industry, and having white people call you a clout-chaser for having the nerve to address that the issue is bigger than ‘men are trash’. It’s being bombarded with horror stories about intracommunity relationships and knowing you can’t say anything. It’s watching as people assume that there is absolutely no way a person they view as angry could ever be invested in other people’s well being because well….you’re angry. If you are not warm and fuzzy at all times, it must mean that you are incapable of such. It’s stopping to ask yourself if you even want to try and explain what is happening and why what you’re discussing is important, knowing that the person won’t de-center themselves. You block for self-care and safety, only to then be told you took the lazy route out by not sticking around and giving free education.

It’s fear of walking outside and being shot for existing, but knowing your friends will accuse you of over-exaggerating. It’s pointing out how ‘wow, you only got a warning for going 20 over in an active school zone? I’d be in cuffs if I were driving’ and being met with disgust, disbelief, and scorn. The same person would call me years later ‘to make sure I’m OK’ when George Floyd died for a bad check. The same person never called me for Sandra Bland, for Mike Brown, for Philandro Castille, for Eric Garner. But I can’t point out how they only called because we’re all stuck at home: that would make me ungrateful.

It’s seeing those around you be predatory and vile, and wanting to-needing to remove yourself from a toxic environment, but being unable to because rent is due and you’re $50 short. You know this place isn’t good for you, but you also know that as soon as word gets around that you left on your own volition, if you’re broke it’s ‘your own fault for not sticking it through.’ It’s the expectation that we have to be hardened, and tough, and willing to grit through it all. Yes, our mental health and sanity are fair prices to pay to many. It’s sitting in your exit interview and debating on if you’re honest with your now former employer (I wasn’t in my last job exit, I knew I would be blamed for not speaking up) or you just get it out and over with so you can move on to the next thing: KNOWING that the next black woman that comes in behind you will absolutely deal with the same shit.

It’s being acutely aware that something is not our fault, and yet convincing ourselves it is. It’s deciding when we’ve been uprooted against our will, where we should start over? We think about the time and energy it took us to get this far, and we have to decide, quickly: can we do this all over again?

….should we?

It’s being aware that speaking up about how ‘you may need time to figure it out’ means your deals will be lost. Your sponsors will pull out. And you are painfully aware that you won’t be afforded the space, let alone the support, of your colleagues. You refrain from reminding people that losing 40% of your income isn’t the same as someone making triple your payout losing 40%. You ‘do the right thing’-whatever that is, most answers of which are seldom in your favor. You are still scolded for not having done it faster. Or done it ‘enough.’ How dare you want me to care about black lives, when you can’t instantaneously drop someone you deemed a friend, a mentor, a colleague, a cast mate? To reiterate, when I said ‘sad’ earlier, I didn’t mean as an emotion, as ‘feeling down’-I meant as in pitiful, pathetic. We have to ingest and comprehend horrific and shocking news instantaneously and be ready and on stage to fight all over again…now, actually.

You’re late to your next call out. You’re late to your next protest. You’re late to your next free education session that you didn’t sign up for. You do not get to process the news coming out about people you trusted being outed for any reason.

You see, there is ‘Work to Do™’, and despite all the times previous that we tell people this exact phrase in an attempt to highlight why dismantling systemic racism doesn’t stop at a hashtag, doesn’t stop at putting BLM in your handle, doesn’t stop at that one charity stream you did, it couldn’t ring more true until utilized to force black women to disregard our own pain and suffering in favor of ‘keeping the fight going.’ We silently watch as non-black women are given ‘all the time they need.’ We silently watch as non-black women appropriate our language, demanding time to ‘rest’ because they made a tweet that was read wrong and that was ‘very tiring’, but they can’t be bothered to engage let alone uplift their BW peers when we cry out on a constant basis for any support.

It’s making decisions to protect your communities and families only to then be crassly singled out with a message reading ‘you still want my raids or nah’-because the appropriation of the AAVE doesn’t get space to be addressed, on account of you’re too loudly aware that this message isn’t an olive branch: it’s a passive aggressive way to force me, the one choosing to distance/leave from a problem space, to say plainly ‘I don’t want to fuck with you anymore’ so that they can continue on, guilt free, because ‘well Vanessa said no, and I tried, so I don’t have to feel bad.’ My tiredness is immediately disregarded, despite being so ‘understood.’ My reasoning and complaints fall on deaf ears. The pain and struggle I endure is, as always, secondary. I exit the conversation expecting no apologies for their community’s abuse/rudeness at any point in the near future or frankly, any given time. They don’t view what was done as absurd, therefore it is not. These are rules I have begrudgingly accepted, again: at the cost of my own mental health, constantly viewed as unlimited and bountiful. My role in many spaces is to be ‘the understanding one’, ‘the good listener’. Knowing that I seldom if ever will be understood or heard. Or again, even be considered for a moment to say ‘wow, uh, Vanessa I’m sorry that happened and that I didn’t listen.’

It’s wondering which white ally is going to drop you today, for asking for ‘too much’, for ‘being unfair’, for not giving them more wiggle room-when our request was simple: ‘please stop platforming racists, it delegitimatizes many conversations around race. Please stop appropriating our language. Please have the conversation about us, WITH us.’ We are ghosted. We are quietly released. We watch as white allies insist the best way to tackle racism in white communities is to make sure everyone has a voice, everyone has a seat at the table, but they never notice that we aren’t at that table. If they do, they never challenge it. We say nothing because it keeps the peace. The alternative is standing in our truth and hurting feelings, hurting egos, losing invites to shows, losing people who were your friend ‘until you were mean…we used to be so close Twstd, what happened?!’ We wonder if these people were our friend in the first place. We wonder if we have friends.

It’s taking four months to write a piece about how society treats our loss and death as the best trauma porn to market, our appearances as commodities to be tried on and off, our outcries and pain as video game mouthpieces and ‘interesting topics’ for the next Superman comic. It’s watching as none of us get to grieve the death of Chadwick Boseman because we are too busy reminding people that he was a whole human with a disability, but others want to be invested ‘but who will replace him in the next Marvel movie’, or fixing their melanin redacted hands, that not ten minutes ago was complaining about all the looting and protesting over Jacob Blake’s shooting, to remind everyone that the best way to honor the King is to buy THEIR books, THEIR art, and vote for THEIR preferred Presidental candidate. Buy our shitty powdered drink laced with lead, even though we couldn’t be bothered to say BLM once. I watch quietly as black women are the ones who, when saying this, face backlash, resistance, harassment, and lock their accounts out of safety, since no one will protect them. ANd yea, I said it: black men were given the space to be mad about it, but not so much black women.

Yea, I drafted this back when George Floyd died, too.
Writing about this shit is literally draining.

I can craft instance after instance of the ongoing agony, hurt, and confusion that is the mind of a black woman. For most of us, our mind never sleeps. If it isn’t working, it’s trying to sneak in that one minute of humanization. That one moment, where we can take a small sip of our tea without someone crashing behind us making a joke about how we’re ‘spilling the tea.’ That one moment where someone says ‘I appreciate you’ and it isn’t immediately followed by ‘but — .’ The most painful part is that as a black woman, I am fully aware that I will not be afforded peace. I will not be given apologies.

I cannot stress this enough: we just want to rest. We just want a day where our role is not Absolute Strength. Yet with every passing issue? That’s what we are.

We must be strength in death.
We must be strength in adversity.
We must be strength in rapid decline/change.
We must be strength in the movement.
Which movement? Pick one.
We must be strength in criticism.
We must be the ones who endure horrific decisions, then, despite us not being the ones who actually made the decision, go out on a limb to explain why the decision was made.

Y’all: black women are tired. Not just in the sense of George Floyd died or black people stay being abused: we stay getting pigeon holed into scenarios, and the world expects everything from us with little to no backlash. We are expected to be morally perfect at all times, lest we want to be discarded. We are expected to be educators, information sinks, mentors, and more-and never once consider dropping our PayPal or asking for follow up ‘because you should feel satisfaction just knowing you taught me something….’ We aren’t supposed to point out how no matter how many panels you’ve watched me on, where I say ‘hire more black women’ you never do. We aren’t supposed to keep talking about Breonna. There are days where I just sit at my desk and cry in silence…..because I otherwise won’t get the space or room to cry.

We are so, so, fucking tired.

And we want you to know, that being able to somehow endure harassment, microaggressions, free education, labor, back and forth, whataboutisms, and teh general world making it clear with every passing day that they hate us is not strength so much as it is yet another thing that is passively killing us off. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually.

We don’t want to be Strength™.
We just want to be Black women, treated with some aspect of love, and that’s it.