The Wayward Scholar

Edited: August 16th, 2021 – Changed Black bodies to Black people in the essay. 

I am having a conversation that is neither interesting nor impressive with a group of individuals I do not know particularly well; or at least they do not know me. It could be a conversation with anyone; the same conversations that fill up the air until it is stale and dry. We chat together at work, at school, on the street, in bars: strangers, friends, associates and colleagues, it makes no difference.

Its’ a conversation that I have had hundreds of times, too many times in fact. I feel my muscles restrict as my body tenses up; I am hyper aware of the blood pumping hastily through my heart, my teeth grip each other as my jaw tightens, my hands instinctively fold into my lap to conceal clenched fists as I attempt to even my breath, fighting the deep sigh of exasperation caught in my throat to instead smile politely in the face of my oppressor.

This conversation like so many conversations illuminate the precariousness of my existence and the savage dance with annihilation. Chatting about our jobs over ice cream cones and smoothies was refreshingly pleasant until the topic of one of their Black co-workers came up.

“What even is up with her name anyway? Why do people name their kids things like that?”  I could not tell you how the topic even surfaced but I guess a good time is not a good time until fantasies of lynching Black people makes a couple of rounds. I could only assume there is a psychosexual arousal in drawing a line in the sand, some pleasure in flexing about their power and privilege. Dialogue about her name turned into teasing about Black hairstyles, clothing, and work ethic. They discuss an interest in the various skin tones, shades and hues we possess and rank those they find most desirable.

My body and mind went into withdrawal; I only had a few moments to make the decision as how to respond. In this instance, I chose to check out but not without consequence. It is dangerous and potentially lethal for all oppressed and not yet liberated Black people to check out of these conversations. These assertions about hair, dress and names seem trivial but these are precisely the colonial/imperialist attitudes that permit anti-Black racism to thrive in a world that rarely holds white people accountable.  These comments become echoes of ignorance that become barriers to our education, employment, housing and justice. In my silence I am complicit and in my silence I sentenced myself, and my brothers and my sisters to death. The failure to challenge anti-Black ideologies and bigotry only perpetuates violence and does not liberate anyone, especially Black people that are feminine/female.

Alternatively, on another day, in another conversation [that is very much the same] I challenge their words and their prejudice. I explain how names, hairstyles, hair texture, and fashion are more highly valued when they are normalized and normal is always synonymous with heteronormative, cisgender and white. In another conversation, I explain how the music they love, the dances they mimic, the slang they toss between them and the trends they find most precious were greedily snatched from that Black woman leaving her bare and forgotten. In another conversation, I tell them their words are anti-Black racism and their words in my presence display an enormous lack of respect for me and my experiences.

I may challenge them and face a challenge in return because too many people with privilege feel they are above reproach or correction. They believe they are above being called out and cancelled, especially from those who ‘ought to know their place’. Their rebuttal takes form of fierce combat because as it turns out many of them are often willing to die for their beliefs, as long as it destroys me too and keeps supremacy intact. In this brief escalation I meet who they really are. The predictability of the unsurfaced hatred for my Blackness would begin to rear its head and standing alone; I face exhaustion and depletion from the battle…having gained no ground. So I find myself in this particular conversation, remaining silent. Instead I choose what I think is peace entirely forgetting I should be enjoying my ice cream.

This is the nature of a social death, we cannot interact in peace because we are not valued as equal, we are not valued as human, and every social interaction is buried and eulogized before it begins. Our relationships cannot become intimate when challenges are wars leaving scars and wounds that cannot be sutured with apologies.

Every day I must choose to challenge my oppressors and face direct annihilation and/or depletion, I can attempt to reconcile in ways to protect my own peace that sometimes involves checking out. Checking out which permits their violence to seek out Black people for consumption, in which I will remain safe only until it finds me too. There is no option or space in a global nightmare that secures a celebration of my aliveness. Desperately searching for a resolve when face to face with the inevitably of psychic and emotional death  or violence only secures my self-destruction.

The world is entrenched in an anti-blackness that ensnares us regardless of positioning across the diaspora. Black and Brown communities have disproportionately the highest infant mortality rate, greatest risk of stress, heart attack, stroke, hypertension, mental illness. We are disproportionately living in poverty, specifically in neglected communities, facing high rates of incarceration and family violence, gender-based violence, and state sanctioned violence.

Regardless of any ascendancy in materially privileged group memberships we live between violence and death without rhyme or reason.

It is killing all of us and I am dying too.