See: Black in Blues by Imani Perry
What a year this week has been. Another week of being unnecessarily politicized. Another week of weak men and fragile egos projecting their insecurities onto everyone. Another week of graduate school for me. It’s somehow halfway through September and I don’t even want to talk about my thesis. It’s coming along great though.
This week has had its ups and downs. On one hand, it was full of wins: renowned feminist and my former professor Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall launched her latest book, Black! Feminist! Free! On Tuesday, 9/9. The Black feminist community here in Atlanta came together to celebrate her and give her her well-deserved flowers. It was an unforgettable evening! Members of the Spelman Jazz ensemble, including myself, performed and dedicated the tune, Little Sunflower, by Freddie Hubbard to her (since she loves sunflowers!). All in attendance got to bask in the legacies of Black feminist excellence and recommit ourselves to the urgent work of demanding justice and liberation for Black women and all oppressed folks.
On Wednesday, Courtney Williams and Natisha Heideman, two masculine queer women who play for the Minnesota Lynx WNBA team, broke the seal by dying their hair BLOOD RED and openly discussing what it’s like to bleed and play professional basketball on their iconic Twitch channel called StudBudz. It’s about damn time we’ve opened the floor for these conversations because it gives elephant in the room. I think it’s weird we don’t talk about how bleeding affects women athletes in women’s sports! I know I think differently than most, but in a world where it is an empirical fact that 1 out of 5 people of menstruating age is bleeding on any given day and bleeding people spend a total of 3 months out of every year riding the cotton camel, I think it’s fair to call for better representation and public discourse. Sorry not sorry. Their stream was insightful, hilarious, and bold. I hope this is just the beginning of normalizing this regular occurrence and ending the stigma against bleeding people. It’s beyond overdue. Shoutout to the StudBudz for shifting and reclaiming the narrative!
That same day, a pathetic scum of the earth maggot monster choked on his own words by literally getting shot in the neck. I can’t lie the joy that came over me when I got the notification was otherworldly. When I first learned about that clown, I couldn’t even believe that such a stank fat face walking nightmare even had a following. I mean he WAS really all the worst parts of American society packed into a rotten meat case. Burn in hell, guy. Definitely a win for the people.
Alongside all these wins, we did have a setback on Thursday. I was on my way to my beloved HBCU when I received a notification that there was a shelter-in-place order. Now, this is the second shelter-in-place we’ve had this year. CAU is in downtown Atlanta and at this point you come to expect foolishness because it’s DOWNTOWN ATLANTA (whatever that means; safety is a myth). However, by the time I got to the AUC, I learned that other HBCUs were being threatened with bombs. And I… have been struggling mentally since.
Learning this hit me like a ton of bricks. It really did rock me to my core. Since Thursday, I’ve felt rage, anger, frustration, bitterness, helplessness, and sorrow. Those cowardly bomb threats are just that + a deflection of responsibility. As many people have said, how TF did we get dragged into this white-on-white thug violence? To think that our precious institutions built from the ground up by the hands of honest, peace-loving people could have been damaged or destroyed by people hopped up on conspiracy theories and nazi propaganda made me furious. Thinking about the scared mothers and students and family members makes my heart break. This was unacceptable. Fear and intimidation and hate will never be acceptable. This blog is an attempt to channel these feelings into something of value.
In the process of sorting out my emotions and trying to find the light in this darkness, I’ve found peace in admitting I have the blues. It’s the only modality that captures what I’m feeling right now. And just like how playing the blues makes them go away, admitting I have them makes me feel better. Isn’t that so cool how that works?
These blues I got make me feel like I’m in 1935 and not in the good way. I wish I could get in a spaceship and fly away. This year is the ghetto. You’ve got fugly miserable men running stuff, overqualified baddies not getting paid enough. Yuck, throw it away. My blues is made up of that. It’s also made up of being Black in America. My blues includes being Black and educated and having non-Black non-educated people speaking loudly on issues they have no business speaking on. My blues is for the babies. I think about how much of their innocence is shattered because of unhealed adults who need to go to therapy (or just need justice, too). These babies will be my students one day, and I feel helpless living in a world that refuses to protect them. Children are a gift from God and yet people abuse them everyday. Why? What are we doing? We need a global timeout because people just don’t know how to act.
That is about all I have to say for now. Writing about my blues has helped me at least a little bit and I believe it can help you too. Try it out! I’m about to go care for myself because that is an act of self-preservation. In addition to writing about my blues, some other things that have helped me get through this time are:
- Cooking and eating nutritious meals
- Getting some fresh air
- Easy, slow yoga or meditation
- Putting on clean clothes or a nice outfit
- Shedding some much-needed tears
- Continuing to fight for peace and justice
No matter what, hate is losing. And it is our job to fight until the war is won. People have been through worse than what we’re going through. Now is not the time to give up. Stay woke, stay righteous, stay prayed up.