I'm tired, I am tired, I am absolutely fucking exhausted of being made to carry my black like it is a burden.
And there is no respite.
If you are black, you know how I feel and you understand that this rant will be the only break I can catch in this ongoing torrent of violence against my melanin.
I am writing this at half-four in the morning breastfeeding my one year old and I silently cry wondering what the fuck have I done bringing my son into this shit. I look at him sleepily nursing and weep at all the shit he will get flung at him mercilessly as he grows.
I'm crying because of the agonising decisions my husband and I are trying to make when deciding where we want to live next. Stay outside of London in a more rural town like we are where now. Where our son is the only ethnic minority in his nursery and the parents dodge us like hot doodoo during the school plays. But the state schools here are 10 times what they are in London. Go back inside London where our precious black children are being disregarded by the same education system and being buried in increasing number. Do we go back home to Ghana where everyone looks like us, but the constant rape of the land means the healthcare system is less than what it's people need. The leaders are all scrabbling for self because their greed operates out of a mindset of lack?
Can't win.
All because of black. Black. BLACK
I'm tired yo.
I go to work, where I can count the number of black people on one hand. I swallow microaggressions daily to put food on the table, then when my stomach can't hold anymore I'm labelled the bully, the angry black woman. "Calm down you're talking too fast, I didn't mean it like that, my mind didn't get a chance to catch up with my mouth" but I should smile working alongside them with internal disgust at the knowledge of what's overflowing in their minds.
I'm only 32 and I am completely fucking tired.
Rose
Man! I read and re-read your post nodding my head in agreement. 42/F/African-American/Virginia. “Black Rage” -William H. Grier. Brilliant read.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the recommendation, I will look for it!
DeleteSis. I feel you. I FEEL this. I’m 31 and I grew up in the town I live in. I have had the unfortunate experience of watching classmates become racists and bigots. There feels to be no place safe in the westernized world. It feels debilitating, but it’s not. Thankfully we are strong enough to get through the sneers and side eyes. As for being the “angry black woman”, fuck’em. Do what you do and EXCEL because you are EXCELLENCE. are there any rural areas where you have more of a community?
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry for this experience you're going through. I don't have much of a community around me where I live. I'm seriously considering moving back to London because of this!
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ReplyDeleteI understand you very well, in 2011 when I had my daughter, I should have stay in Hull, but choose to move back to London to be closer to family, over the years I've seen more young men being buried like nothing. After 6 years I said enough was enough, now I've moved again hoping this would be a new chapter. The challenge in my situation is am raising 2 boys and a girl as a single mother, but one thing you need to understand is you'll always be that ' black woman' amongst them. Embrace it sis and as for maddy let him enjoy his HOME where he was born and being raised. Fight all the way till end ❤️
ReplyDeleteThank you for your insight, this is what I'm wrestling with, for my own sanity I need to be back in London, because out here the literal insolation is crushing. Apart from looking in the mirror, my son will see himself nowhere. But the fear of what could happen to him growing up there is real 🖤
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