Stop Telling Black People To Tough Shit Out
As a people, we know we’re resilient. We are the chosen ones from the horrendous conditions of forced migration and being stripped from our ancestral lands to a foreign and cruel one. We know, we survived the Middle Passage, Jim Crow Segregation, and are still grappling with the effects of white supremacist racialized violence in our daily lives. But, there’s a phenomenon called Black Joy that equips us with the ability to dig deep beyond that to find our joy. I’ll explain where this post comes from for me.
I’ve survived a lot in my short tenure here on planet Earth. But, I’ve always been taught to hold on, be strong, and that ‘trouble don’t last always’. While, all these things are true, it’s also totally okay to pull a ‘Fuck it, I quit’, when situations are abusive or making you unhappy. My latest run in with the ‘fuck it, I quit’ philosophy came from my last job. Working at a school where the leadership was full of illogical tyrants and a teaching staff that was either blind or complacent with conditions left me majorly confused. So, I turned to my colleagues from universities across the country for advice. Their suggestions ranged based on race, greatly. All my black colleagues told me to ‘tough it out, I’d be leaving soon’, while my white colleagues encouraged me to quit and find happiness elsewhere. Now, i’m not saying my Black colleagues did not want my happiness, but, the first response was to stay and wait things out, rather than immediately to leave. I attribute these to the idea that as a people, Black people pride ourselves on our ability to put up with a lot of shit, that we could easily say ‘fuck it’ to, and move on.
History tells us that Black people are a majestic group of people who resisted captivity, inferiority, and abuse at every point in our history in the United States and everywhere Blackness permeates. Yet, this resistance does not discount the fact that we still deserve joy, happiness, and fullness as a peoples. To me, ridding ourselves of the mentality that we should stick through and hold onto toxic people, situations, and circumstances goes against the principal of promoting Black joy and freedom. So, ultimately, stop telling Black people to hold for better, to keep fighting through ridiculous situations with ridiculous people (of all races). It’s okay to say ‘fuck it, i quit’, when your job, significant other, or friends are not treating you well.
While, there are situation worth working through (ie, idk freedom for our people), many times when Black people are told to fight it out, it is for things that are temporary and easily changeable. In these moments, it is better to save yourself some peace of mind and happiness, and just quit. Because, in the end, we know freedom has so many iterations, it cannot be simply defined or even expressed. Ultimately, it is important that Black people are allowed to (and allow ourselves), to be diverse. It is important that we remind ourselves that Blackness cannot be confined into a box of impenetrable strength, resilience, and the will to overcome. Blackness also means vulnerability, sensitivity, and a range of emotional expressiveness.
So long as we remind ourselves that joy and happiness are just as important as resilience and strength, we can continue to fight for a diverse version of freedom that includes pure and adulterated joy.
