The Struggle of Being Black and Choosing Self-Care Over Shared Trauma

Being Black in America sometimes means feeling guilty for trying to be ok.

I haven’t really written much this year. I’ve been fortunate to have had a few pieces published at LEVEL and I have just begun writing my first book but otherwise, I haven’t been able to bring myself to sit and write because doing so would mean diving headlong into trauma.

I did my best to avoid the stories. Ahmaud Aubery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and others. I did my best to avoid it all.

The anger and sadness of it all never really eluded me. Nor did the internal swelling that comes when one wants to say or write all the things. Or at the very least, feel like you should say and write all the things.

Instead, for pretty much the entire year I tried to enjoy the bubble I have been confined to during the course of a global pandemic. My soon to be wife, along with our children have been the entirety of my existence. I’ve taken the time to begin building a podcast network. I’ve taken up photography. I’ve napped. Inside this bubble my life has been fantastic.

This is why I at this moment I feel guilty as fuck.

Being Black in America often means having to choose between self-care and solidarity. In the social media age solidarity includes participating in the shared trauma of not being white in America. It means having videos of violence against Black folks thrust in our faces. It means watching those of us on the front lines take the brunt of America’s indignation in the form of tear gas and rubber bullets.

To watch Black folks march in the streets in the name of justice makes my apartment feel like a gilded cage.

There was a time where I watched all the videos. Wrote all the things. Tweeted all the tweets. At one point I was cataloging incidents of police brutality as part of my job. Collecting names and pictures and writing briefs on the sanctioned death of Black and Brown folks. It was both fulfilling and devastating.

I have over the years developed a small audience of people who would seek me out to hear my thoughts on these issues as they would arise. It got to a point where I would get sent videos of police brutality and other violence sent to me asking me to comment on and amplify these stories.

It ultimately became too much.

I spent this year being quiet because to be anything else would mean diving back into the trauma of Black death in America.

I got good at it too. I only recently saw the George Floyd video. I managed to dodge most of the accounts on Breonna Taylor’s death. If not for having written a piece on running while Black I might have been able to slip by that one too.

Now there is Jacob Blake.

I watched today as the Milwaukee Bucks forfeited a playoff game in protest. I watched Doc Rivers speak with tears welling in his eyes at the frustration of yet another senseless death at the hands of police. I watched Kenny Smith walk off the NBA on TNT stage.

I felt that swelling again.

I decided to watch the video of Jacob Blake’s death. I’m writing this just moments after seeing the video for the first time. I decided to do so because it feels like it’s my turn. I have had my break. It’s time for someone else to check out and retire to their bubble. It’s time for me to yell. It’s time for me to cry. It’s time for someone to rest.

Watching the death of Jacob Blake brought back an all too familiar despair. I felt it when I watched the Walter Scott video. I felt it when I watched the Philando Castile video. I felt it when I watched the Freddy Gray video. I felt it when I watched the Marlene Pinnock video. I felt it when I saw the smirk on Dillon Roof’s face. I felt it when I watched the Sandra Bland Documentary.

I feel it when I realize that there have been so many incidents that I have lost track of the names.

I have spent the better part of a year hiding from this feeling. In doing so I actively traded the despair of being connected to the struggle for the guilt of stepping back from it.

Truthfully, I don’t know what if anything chronicling my angst and anger actually does to improve the situation. I don’t know what reading my or anyone else's views on this subject does to role the ball forward. All I know is that as indifferent as this country and this world has been to the plight faced by Black people everywhere the cost of collective silence and resignation is far too much.

Progress is dependent on the continuous hum of Black voices.

It’s time for me to rejoin the chorus.

Sidenote: I’m entirely aware that this might be a senseless ramble. I honestly needed this space to process some things and I don’t know how to write just for myself. Apologies if this is a weird mess.