Resilient

or Why I Won’t Join Your Internet Cancel Campaign Even If You DM Nicely

An audio recording of this piece can be heard on Anchor.

Black people are so fucking resilient. On a daily basis, I am presented with testimony, great and small and past and present, highlighting our triumphs, everyday achievements, and brilliance. Some days, we even get to just be humans. Boring, regular, please don’t make this a big thing, and also don’t harass, disregard, whitewash, speak for, touch, or kill me humans. We are the model for resistance, persistence, and resilience.

While Black resilience has been used to justify our abuse, such as the medical field’s refusal to believe Black patients feel pain and the complete disregard for our humanity by the justice system, it has also been an implement of survival. When you do not have the expectation that you will be welcome anywhere, you enter every space without entitlement. You do, nevertheless, enter proudly, because you may be the first or the only, but you refuse to acquiesce to any attempts to make you the last. In the face of systemic cruelty and bigotry, Black people keep it pushing, because there is no other way. We have never known a way other than forward.

When I, an heiress of resilience, see something or someone on the internet that I disagree with, find mildly irritating, or is my “yuck” to someone’s “yum,” but otherwise does not constitute an attack on or abuse of another, I keep it pushing. Should the vexation warrant it, I use the tools at my disposal to rid my virtual and physical spaces of that individual. When an evangelist on a mission of “Um, you like, need to be offended by this,” flits their way into my DMs, they inevitably miss the irony of their actions. “So…you. Want to help me. By telling me. What you. Want me. To feel,” I reply. “Furthermore, you think I’m too ignorant to comprehend the topic, form an opinion, and present my own rebuttal. Therefore, you presume that I will be converted, if only you would show me the light. Is that about right?” Copy. Paste. Repeat. I really wish I had thought of that before now. Alas, I am quite certain I will have need of this retort many, many, many times in the future.

I do not presume that a stranger has any responsibility to make me feel comfortable in this world, or if they did, that they would uphold it. This world is not concerned with the comfort of Black bodies. We have always made space for ourselves, without seeking anyone’s permission. My inherited resilience moves me forward, and beyond your distractions and lamentations and sobbing and moaning and howling. You come as a sister, but I do not know you to be a sister of mine. Nor do I know you to be a familiar of any whom I do call sister. If you enter my space, come correct, or you will leave with the taste of salty tears on your lips, and a neverending ringing in your ears from the lashing my tongue will deliver.

I know every space is not my space, and that I am not, nor do I need to be, at the center of every story. I do not presume that the color of my skin predetermines my existence as the default presence or opinion. This knowledge frees me to use my energy as fuel for the fires that honor those who came before, serve myself and those who are the now, and continue the tradition of easing the path of those who are to come. I may call you out in my galaxy, I may refuse to share my constellations with you, and that is my prerogative. But my resilience has taught me that I cannot force you out of shared spaces, solely based on my discomfort. I can ask those close to me to aid in my efforts to not engage with you, but they have a right to refuse. I, and every Black person I have ever met, has had to clench their teeth on their tongue until it was nearly severed in two, in the face of blatant racism, because our lives depended on it. We know more than mild discomfort; we know the very current shared trauma of state sanctoned torture, death, and attempts to silence our voices and rewrite our history. The survival of our Black bodies and our Black excellence depends on our ability to know where our Black power must be spent. We survive and thrive because we are magic, yes, but more importantly, because we are resilient.

I cannot force a person to abandon their choices solely for the purpose of my peace. That would imply that my peace is something they can bestow or revoke. My peace may be stung by their ignorance, but my blood is precious, so I dare not shed one drop on willful benightedness. Now, if a bitch got time in between sips of her latte to bequeath some of her experiential knowledge on a poor soul, she may very well do so. Nevertheless, they do not owe me a discussion, an apology, or a change in behaviour.

Shall I expend my melanin might on force feeding a stranger my gift? Shall I break my gift into smaller palatable chunks? Shall I join you in your campaign to ostracize them because they reject my gift (bearing in mind that you are the one who told me they did so and that I should consequently be offended)? Shall I go out of my way to poison any gifts they have or will receive from their past, present, or future? I could. But, I’ve finished my latte, and this bitch has got empires to build and support. My energy is spoken for.

Whether a human on the internet chooses to have a seat at my table and break bread with me, or turns their nose up to my crumbs, is none of my business. I do not require their acceptance, their permission, or their support, and you know exactly why: because my Black is beautiful, my Black is powerful, and my Black is fatherfucking resilient.