4:44 a.m. on Black Life, Care, & Our Response
practices and resources you may have not realized that you have.
Written by: Lauren Ash
Trigger warning: Black death, Black violence, white supremacy. Sidenote: if you’re creating or sharing any content that speaks to any of this always contextualize it with a trigger warning.
This is inspired by my godbrother Aaron Aye. A young creative genius. A 24-year old Black man and artist who carries the world on his shoulders. We spoke last night about the latest violent death of a Black man, happening in our hometown, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He felt a pressure to say something, do something, in response. I reminded Aaron:
All you need do, in this moment, is to keep living. To take care of yourself.
In terms of a response, you showing up authentically is what matters. For yourself, with the particular gifts that you have brought to this lifetime. And in your own time.
I’ve had this conversation before. With Aaron, and with many close friends, over the years. I’m certain I’ll have it again. And again.
Heart-centered Black millennials, with activist roots, a lineage of resilient ancestors who quite literally fought and died for change, and who carry within us a deep seated desire for radical change and transformation: we feel this enormous pressure to respond — and immediately — to the latest act of senseless violence against our people and our communities.
I affirm that we must practice showing up in ways that honor our humanity, our wholeness, and our multilayered wellbeing. And if showing up means temporary disengagement, then so it is. Please do not kill yourself attempting to demonstrate your level of care or passion for the cause.
Black people —
It’s normalized, yet not normal: the global, mass acceptance of white supremacy, especially by white people.
It’s normalized, yet not normal: the unacknowledged genocide of Black people that has been unfolding with intention and agenda for centuries.
It’s normalized, yet not normal: the mass consumption of violent images and death, particularly within U.S. media with particular attention given to the Black body and invested interest in lives taken at the hands of “our” state and nation.
Black people, if no one has affirmed this for you: it’s urgent for you to tend to yourself. Your nervous system is worthy of your care. Your ancestors desire for you to tend to your wounds, acknowledge your triggers, and establish a nourishing practice where you can be.
Take a deep breath.
Your breath in this moment matters. Your heart beat in this moment matters. Your presence and capability to tell your loved ones about your dreams and hopes for you and your family’s future matters.
2016. I left Facebook. My spirit didn’t agree with the on-the-ready graphic videos and photos and news cycle of killings of members of my community, my extended family, nor the second-hand trauma I was force fed with every second of scrolling. I instead channeled more of my energy into holding space for Black women to heal together in community through my then two-years old podcast, online publication, and wellness organization Black Girl In Om, as well as a social space I founded for Black people to center joy in their everyday lives that I cultivated with compassion and intention for two years. For about a month, it felt strange, not being plugged into the digital space that billions of folk around the world use to “stay in touch” and to know what’s going on. After that month, can’t say I’ve missed it.
2018. I left Twitter. Similar reason. I also sensed the medium and what it was doing to my creativity didn’t sit right with me.
2019. I unfollowed everyone on Instagram (lol). Threw my deuces up and said I don’t care what anyone thinks. Spirit’s telling me that it’s just not what I need: the mass consumption of content force fed to me even when “well-curated” or “positive” it’s still a countless number of images more than what humanity has been subjected to in the past that I’m bombarded with. How is that influencing my creativity, my individual genius, and knowing that when Black folk are dying I can expect for this space to look just like my Facebook feed in 2016. Triggering. No thanks.
2019 was also the year that I became more vigilant about my consumption of content of any kind that contained violence against the Black body and psyche. Music, tv, film, you name it.
I know myself and what and how I desire to be fiercely protective of my energy. It took me awhile to get here. I’m unapologetic about my choices now. It quite literally makes me hold my breath: the thought of watching intentionally or otherwise a video of violence against a human being killed because of the perpetrators inability to recognize him as human. I know that impact of the mass consumption, recycling, of this kind of death on the consciousness of a nation and a world. Globally, this kind of death is held in a strange space of both acceptance and entertainment. It has been said that we are generally “numb” to it now. I refuse to accept that.
We have a response-ability. To be vigilant and discerning. Depending on your purpose, you are being called to show up differently when, predictably, another Black person is killed. Showing up, period, matters. For your community and for yourself. And when you show up for yourself, you are showing up for your community.
Maybe you have chosen to be an activist, in the traditional sense of the concept. You still have a response-ability to take care of yourself. Your energy towards awakening the collective and fighting for equity and justice is lost if you’re inadvertently allowing them to kill you because of your refusal to take care of yourself. You are not alone in your fight and in case no one has told you lately: your life, your work, your passion matters. If you disagree with me about the value of self-care, that’s understandable. Our value systems are not in alignment and that’s okay. I will continue to pray for your wholeness and your healing even if you refuse to recognize that it matters.
I'm grateful to exist in a space and time where more activists embody the possibilities of what healing and activism can look like. Of what caring for ourselves while on the front lines can look like. Martyrdom isn’t to be praised. We can all be heroes in our everyday lives which sometimes quite literally looks like a nap. From colleagues of mine like Virginia A. Cumberbatch and Meagan Harding of Rosa Rebellion and the work that they, with the Austin Justice Coalition, Minds over Melanin, and Rosa Rebellion are fueling for us during the COVID-19 era which is, as they put it, "exacerbat[ing] pre-existing inequities and inadequacies of systemic racism [and as such] it is necessary to create intentional space to explore the multiple ways we may all be experiencing this pandemic." And Rachel Ricketts who organized a steadily growing fund for Black, indigeneous, womxn of color. Activism has necessarily taking on new forms this decade and when it leans towards a consideration of care it’s leaning in the right direction.
Maybe you have chosen to be a Mother, Father, parent or caregiver to a Black child. You have a response-ability to take care of your children, and yourself. To prepare your children to know that their skin may be a danger sign. That a seemingly normal everyday ritual, drive, errand, or exercise within or outside of the home carries with it the chance that they may face the expected. I do not speak as a parent. I speak as a child of two well-meaning parents who did their best for me in every way and provided for me beyond compare. But they did not prepare me for racism out of, I believe, their own hope that I would not have to deal with, or confront it, in the same way as they and Black folk of their generation did.
But 2020 looks like the 1960s. The decade in which my full-scholarship awarded Father was driving in Cleveland, Ohio with his Black classmates, including a young woman, and got targeted and driven off the road by white men. The men beat him and his Black classmates all nearly to death until one of the white men — a classmate of theirs — recognized one of them as one of his classmates “Is that you, Billy?” They mumbled some apologies and ran off.
When my Father and his friends went to the police, the ultimate “punishment” was for one of the white perpetrators to pay for the damage to their car. He still hasn’t fully healed from the emotional and physical trauma of that violence.
Property matters more than people in this country. And we used to be legally deemed somebody’s property. Now that we are not, we are deemed disposable.
Black children need to know this. All children need to know this. And for those who think this is too much, it’s not. I’ve taught and learned with Black youth, white youth, and POC youth about the history of how Black folk have been racialized in this world and the urgency of being critically engaged in protesting and resisting that racialization; the impact of not doing so is far more toxic and dangerous for us all.
Maybe you have chosen, or been called, like me, to hold space for Black people. Energetically, Spiritually. Emotionally. I’ve talked with and held space 1:1 for hundreds of healers, therapists, mental health advocates, and creatives for the past few months, and thousands for the past few years. I would not be able to, or have the capacity for, holding space through 1:1 meditation and prayer, radical listening and energy healing, if I consumed mass violence of the very same people I am holding space for. Fear and anxiety are not welcome guests in my consciousness nor spiritual practice. I’ll emphasize it again: in no time, space, era, realm of possibility is it nor should it be normal, human, sound to consume mass violence of any kind, and when the kind consumed particularly focuses on an ethic group that has been intentionally, purposely “othered” for hundreds of years there’s a particularly sick and twisted agenda at play.
May we never be foolish in dismissing what happened, and is happening, against indigenous folk within this country and continent: mass extinction of entire ethnic groups. It’s a formula: the intentional racialization of an entire people strips human beings of their humanity which in turn serves to justify their termination.
I come from a strong and resilient family line. One that has faced horrific and ugly encounters with white supremacy. On my Mother’s side, my Great-Grandmother Joanna lived in a small shack on a farm in Pleasant Hill, Louisiana with her four sons and two daughters. She was sharecropping for a cruel man who threatened to kill them. He wanted my seven-year old Grandmother Lillian to go out to work in the fields, but my Great-Grandmother refused to let such a young child go out into the fields to work. When the man threatened them saying “You know I can shoot all of you in the head and bury you out here and no one would ever do anything about it” my Great Grandmother dared to conjure up the small bit of agency she had — her voice — to advocate for herself. She started to sing hymns expressing her faith in Christ, not a religious trope but a consciousness containing the embodiment of the greatest power. That of Love.
My Great-Grandmother’s choice to respond not from fear, but from a place of radical Love and care for her daughter and advocate for her family with the threat of death is unbelievable. It is my responsibility today to stand in the path she carved out for me and to continue to take care of me, my family, and my community, within the energy of Love. Through my focus on healing myself and taking care of myself, I am healing my family line from intergenerational trauma. Through my focus on offering an alternative narrative around healing possibilities to my community at large, I am contributing towards a much needed shift in our collective consciousness, one that is aligned within the frequency of Love and actively resists the fear that we are force-fed.
Read more from Lauren in The Love Issue of our Journal
The Love Issue explores what love looks like in action. It expands our definition of the famous four-letter word, in ways both traditional and untraditional.
Black people, I love you. I love you. I love you. Lean into your capacity to choose, as you can, how you care for and Love yourself and how you respond to the realities of the world we live in.
What I offer — practices and resources you may have not realized that you have:
Unplug from the matrix. Being on social media, watching the news, following accounts that trigger you: all a choice. What other people think of this seemingly radical choice to disengage from what’s popular is none of your business. Unplugging from these things is not an indication of your level of care about Black life. So, I suppose it’s also important to emphasize that this is also an unplugging from what other people think of you and your decisions to advocate for yourself and your energy.
Breathe. It is your Divine gift. And it’s highly underrated. If you are able to and have the privilege, research the power of the breath, practice, and share with others what you discover. Through intentional tapping in and practice of the breath, you are remembering and honoring the millions of Black folk whose breath was stolen from them.
Therapy. Also underrated. The Loveland Foundation offers a therapy fund specifically to support Black women and girls in accessing free therapy. I found my therapist thanks to Therapy for Black Girls and the $150/session I am grateful to be able to pay her for every session is worth every cent. It’s an investment in my own healing and in the intergenerational trauma that I inherited from my ancestral line.
Meditation. I recently created a healing meditation for Black girls and spoke about why mindfulness matters for us as Black people and particularly for Black girls with Evelyn of the Internets, Muhsinah, and Satyani McPherson. My meditations offered for free on Insight Timer have been sparking healing and expanding the consciousness of Black people around the power of taking time for ourselves to breathe, be still, and get in touch with our spirits. I’m grateful. Meditation has proven to be supportive of resiliency and our nervous system. As Black folk, we need all the support we can get. And meditation is free, self-guided, and accessible for all bodies.
Yoga Nidra. I can’t speak more highly of this ancient practice that offers the deepest form of restoration and rejuvenation on a mind, body, soul level. I am blessed to have been drawn to the practice, to have magnetized it to me, right before I needed it most. It is apart of my daily practice and I encourage you to get into it via one of the truest spiritual teachers I have ever encountered, Tracee Stanley.
Love yourself and your people.
Know that it is not your responsibility to watch everything, know everything, speak up about everything. Anyone who tries to demand this of you or tells you otherwise be wary of.
Consider the true cost of ingesting content that denies your humanity. Watch Ethnic Notions by Marlon Riggs if you’re going to watch something. Read freedom stories from former enslaved Africans if you’re going to read something. Ingest messages that affirm your self-care, like this song and video by my godbrother Aaron Aye on being present, coping with anxiety, and the Divine support, that is always available to us.
Black people: I love you.
This piece was originally published on Lauren’s website.
