Being black is America is hard. We’re attacked on all sides. From biased hiring practices to the criminal justice system, it’s hard to have a bunch of melanin in your skin these days. Every time I begin to forget, America hits me with another left to the chin. The most recent sucker punch was the news that the jury in the Walter Scott trial was unable to come to a verdict. A police officer was captured on video executing an unarmed, fleeing black man yet apparently there’s still some room for doubt. Incredible. Welcome to America in 2016.
Walter Scott. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Terrence Crutcher. I could fill pages with the list of black people who have been killed by the police just this year. Then there’s the constant tide of racism that assaults us on a daily basis, from microaggressions, to full on racial slurs to protestations from white folks on both sides of the aisle to “pipe down about the whole race thing.” Then there's fact that a man supported by white supremacists is the President-elect. Everywhere we turn, we find a new threat. Being black is scary and exhausting.
Yet, being black is also beautiful and exhilarating. Look around and you see black people succeeding despite everything. Rolling Stone’s TV Show of The Year and Album of The Year went to Donald Glover’s Atlanta and Beyonce’s Lemonade. One of the most successful independent artists in the music industry is Chicago native Chance the Rapper. And until January 20, 2017, our president is black. No matter how much this country tries to keep us down, still we rise.
And now, more than ever, it is vital that we are steadfast in our blackness. We must revel in it. We must take refuge in it, because that’s just what white America doesn’t want us to do. They want us to sit down and shut up. They don’t want us to exist, to live, to thrive in our blackness. Why is the pinnacle of faux racial enlightenment, “I don’t see color?" Because "seeing color" means coming to grips with the fact that there's a disparity between black and white folks in America, and our unashamed blackness is a constant reminder that white America simply doesn’t want.
We cannot stop being black so let us be as black as possible, whatever that looks like for you. For me, it’s not avoiding matters of race simply to make my white peers feel more comfortable. For you, it may be something else entirely. Your expression of your blackness may be large and flamboyant or it may be simple and quiet. But whatever it is, be black with all of your heart. There will always be those who hate us because of our skin color, so we may as well be black as hell.
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