Black Lives are tired
It’s February again. Less than half a frigid day of it had passed, before I felt the weight of Black History Month on my shoulders – the exhaustion of it. I caught myself asking today, “am I a Bad Black Person for not wanting to post anything?” Am I still doing my part if I’m not actively teaching and speaking about the oppression of Black People, celebrating Black success and excellence, and amplifying Black voices? Am I a Bad Black person if I’m tired? Because I am. I’m so tired.
Black History Month has become a pretty hot topic in popular culture, there’s no denying it. We’ve got sections on Netflix, Disney+, Instagram — if ‘Market Visibility’ translated to systemic, structural, economic, or political change, we could just about call it a day. But when those symbolic gestures co-occur with the banning of books on Black History, the banning of Critical Race Theory in schools, and brazenly public acts of racism, how far can we really tell ourselves we’ve come?
I watched the events in Ottawa unfold with horror, like I imagine most Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour did. We know we live in a racist society with racist systems, but to see confederate flags and swastikas carried together with Canadian flags, not just in the context of white supremacy, but to protest the oppression of (almost all) white settlers… it just weighs you down. It makes you so, so tired.
It is another Black History Month. Another month of performative wokeness, performative allyship, and weakly disguised corporate marketing strategies. Maybe I am a Bad Black Person for not wanting to engage this year, for wishing that just once, I could have the privilege to look away. To “not pay attention to politics”, a luxury afforded to so many on this land, and not suffer the pain of seeing those flags, those symbols of hate on unceded Algonquin land. To not wear the scars from it.
A song came on while I was struggling with the month of February this year, that just so perfectly entwined both my exhaustion, and the deeper emotions that make me feel guilty for feeling tired. The lyrics of Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout” are not overwritten.
My rage is deeper. My sadness is deeper. Indignation — that’s the foundation, I’m pretty sure. How can I, or any Black person “sit out” for February, and not say their names? No matter how badly we might need to. No matter how tired we are. As much as I need to rest, I need even more for their names to be said. I need us to not forget the trauma that’s still bleeding our communities, like those symbols of hate being flown proudly in Ottawa right now — bizarrely flown in protest of oppression. And that’s just it — Black People have never had the privilege to stop thinking about the pain, to put down the politics and rest. Because dehumanization is always personal. The celebration of slavery, genocide, and absolute domination of Black Bodies and Black Minds, is always personal. And if Black People don’t say something about it, especially in this shortest, darkest, lousiest month of the year, then who will? And when will they say it?
So we don’t set it down. We don’t have the privilege to ‘relax’ and ‘just take a breath’, because the burden working against our oppression is always placed on the oppressed. Queer and Trans Folks, Indigenous Folks, Black Folks, (dis)Abled Folks, — it’s always up to us to struggle for recognition as humans, which is why we don’t get to set it down. But that’s also where the strength comes from, when I start to feel weak. So while I sit here, exhausted as I am, I remember I have to be unbreakable, like every other Black Person in this reactionary era of Capitol Rioters and the Flu Klux Klan has to be. But we are so much more than our pain, and I have to hope that in some February down the road, we won’t have to be so tired.
When you live and work on the margins, you get used to mistrusting hope. But I also can’t look away from how far we have come. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it. No, not far enough, or fast enough, but change is happening. More people are fighting alongside us, and not as performative ‘allies’, but because they realize they cannot be free either, while others are oppressed. They’re using their privilege as co-conspirators to speak to those with deaf ears to Black Voices, deny safe spaces for fear and hatred to grow, and sit in the discomfort of accountability. They’re taking on some of the burden. It gives me hope that one day, some day, I’ll be able to rest, be weak, be soft, and not be a Bad Black Person for it.
