The Peak: Blackness in the Pandemic
“2020 is gonna be a movie”
The sun peeks through red and blue blinds. I catch a few rays to this pale melanin. The heat permeating from my filmy window is sometimes all I can do to remind myself that this is real. Even in this moment writing has been hard because my mind is a pendulum swinging in and out of this horror movie, jolting me out of my creative space of peace. I often feel like I’m an extra in a Dystopian saga where only the lily blonde head blue eyed Karen’s survive and us Black folk die in the first few scenes. This is a world where busty white girls running through dark wooded areas always into the bowels of trouble but seem to always make it out alive with their limbs still intact. We furiously scream at them on movie screens, “Girl don't go that way”! Or “Oh you just tryna die”! Worlds where the others face heart wrenching death much like those in our classics where Cleo took her last step, Ricky took his last breath and Baby G have been our imitation of life. We have always been the sacrificial lambs of any tragedy in reality and behind white screens, this pandemic is no different.
Glass Case
Sweaty palms on a sweaty forehead in dark corners and damp void spaces. I try not to cry and when I do I just sit on the cold porcelain tub allowing the waves of the world to wash over me. I snap back, wash my face and get back in the game. Bathroom cry sessions are a common occurrence that I've always been accustomed to, but are hitting a bit different these days. Wash,rinse,repeat. Routine is one thing that allows many with anxiety to calm themselves. I often mourn the unknown as millions of scenarios race through my mind so the “knowing” at times subsides the anxiety. Lists, checks,balances and schedules are helpful to remain in the now and sometimes those things are not enough. If you've ever seen Groundhog Day with Bill Murray you would know that we are living the same day over and over and over again, not knowing when the groundhog will show its shadow and allow for us to feel the warmth of the sun. Helplessness and fear is all my extended chestnut arms have to offer on the pulpit of Blackness. I fear for my people. I feel like I can't do anything for them, like I’ve failed them, as America always has failed us from inception in our mothers wombs. These sacred offerings are honest but less helpful than I’d hope. For many of us this is a nightmare that has always existed but is now just inflated by the outbreak of the pandemic.
The World is All a Stage
Refraining from too much news consumption , I swallow the hollow pill that some of my people will die unnecessarily, people will starve without warrant and all the government is going to do is posture like a 19 year old Frat Boys over the last partially conscious woman. They are truly birds of prey, puffing out their chests and friling their feathers in such a performative fashion that our community has found it humorous. Nothing is about the people, everything is about capitalism and greed. They say the only color people see is green but they’ve never woken up in Black skin. Black communities are not at all surprised that racism does not die in the eyes of a deadly virus. I've heard people tell me that they are not wearing masks in fear of violence that comes with melanated skin. I see those same people having to go out and feed their families because most of them are essential workers. What do you do when what you were born with is already criminalized? Now in order to protect yourself you have to look like the same criminal that they envisioned in their minds long before you’ve uttered a word? We have always lived between these two worlds: Who we are and who everyone thinks that we are. The humanity that Americans have found for each other is not reserved nor has ever been for us. All we need to know about America is that while Trump supporters break social distancing and protest in the streets untouched, our people are being dragged out of Walmart's and off of buses for both wearing masks and not.
Survivors
Blackness has always been a beautiful struggle, a struggle that some are now feeling and don't know what to do with. Even though it is only the tip of the iceberg experience daily, some and a peek into our existence, some are beginning to see what lies beneath posturing and fallacious rhetoric. We shine regardless. Black businesses have been thriving, more art is being created and more humor is emerging filled with infectious brown laughs to get us through as we always have. Some of us are finally able to live, able to breathe and to take up space in a place that has never held a humane spot for us. This too shall pass. We've got us. We always have. We will survive this and when we do we will step out together, soaking in the sun that bows to us as we bow to her.