Black Joy is a Transgressive Experience
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The Capital Riot was 12 days ago. It would be disingenuous for me to say that I didn’t expect it, or at least some white-supremacist empowered, self-righteous attack on democracy of similar proportions. It reminds me of a line I recently read from Nikki Giovanni’s Poem No Name №3 in which she wrote:
If the Black Revolution passes you bye it’s for damned sure
the whi-te reaction to it won’t
If there was ever any doubt that the past several years, if not the past century has been a period of racial revolution, it is now undebatable. We have mourned the senseless loss of young Black life and celebrated the triumphs of Black artists, entrepreneurs, families, and politicians. In each instance, whether in grief or jubilance, there is always a push-back or as Tyler Burns, host of Pass the Mic podcast calls it, a ‘white-lash.’
There is a constant suppression that parasitically feeds on expressions of Blackness in any form. Be it peaceful protests in a city’s streets, family barbecues at a local park, young children singing hymns in a church pew, or suited-up politicians taking oaths in their new offices — when it occurs in Black circles, there is always resistance. Why?
The unequivocal truth is that the Black experience in America is a transgressive one. Whether we care to admit it or not, to protest, to vote, to possess authority, to sing, to love, to laugh, to excel, to live and flourish as a Black person challenges the very fundamentals of American society.
On a day as historically significant as today, we cannot forget the pain that Black Americans have endured over the centuries. Slavery and segregation were not antiquated societal ills that made their way to this nation by happenstance. They are part of the country’s very foundations.
With the inhumane realities of the transatlantic slave trade as widely-documented as ever, and segregation’s legacy still alive and well, for Black Americans to recreate a nation in a way that so clearly defies what the white-supremacist founding-fathers of this country had intended is nothing short of revolutionary.
To exist in any space as a Black person in America and see life in color, to strive to truly live and not just survive transgresses every racial confine ever made at this country’s inception. It’s a difficult truth to come to terms with, but an even tougher reality to live.
Black people should not have to shrink back in attempts to make Black joy any less radiant, or Black sorrow any less profound. To allow these sentiments and experiences to have their full resonance is to break the boundaries of what the systemic formulation of Blackness was ever created to be.
Those of us who live in American society, regardless of color or ethnic origin, must be prepared to allow Blackness to exist without the constant urge to suppress it. We must be prepared to mourn with the Black American community in its heartache and champion its victories. We must be ready to acknowledge our contributions to Black America’s hurt and do the healing work to aid in its rebuilding. We must learn to put ourselves aside. We must choose to love.
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good…Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Romans 12:9, 15 ESV
