There’s a reason for the popularity of artists like Summer Walker. Sza, Ari, Summer— they’re not just women we want to be. They’re women we actually are. An era of black and notably femme voices in R&B have been singing us into new lessons of vulnerability, intimacy, financial stability, as well as new depths of physical and emotional love. Their music is a long-awaited mirror, the representation we’d spent so much time longing for that when it arrived, we recognized it immediately. These artists challenge years of the over-talked lived experiences of Black women’ tropes concerning an inability to “turn a hoe into a housewife,” good old slut-shaming, and the struggles that come when you try to juggle a tough girl persona, rapping how you don’t give a shit what They say, even though a tiny secret part of you really does. We crave these songs. They usher you through all those sensitive nights in your bedroom with the window open and the lights off; with the candles and the white sage and the weed burning on high as moonlight glints off your plant leaves and gem stones. They have become an integral part of the self-care ritual, without us ever noticing. After being brutalized by the unrealistic standards of Black Girl Magic, of the Strong Black Woman, at work, at home, and every other place except our headphones, we can retreat into the embrace of musicians who truly understand us. They are mega-sirens, witnessing us with every plucked guitar string, every sultry, smoothly drawled, Neo-Soul note. They understand us. They see us. So, how come we can’t see them? Mic/Getty ImagesAmong star-crossed love songs about ain’t shit niggas, and ballads about bills that have the audacity not to pay themselves, our oracles are highlighting a struggle even less talked about. One we all share. The big one: mental wellness. Even in viewing the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the insurmountable pressure placed on Black women artists to bare their souls to an unforgiving world is evident. Her 2001 MTV Unplugged 2.0 album comes to mind. We see a young Lauryn sitting on a stool onstage, clutching a guitar, crying, explaining herself: "I had created this public persona, this public illusion, and it held me hostage. I couldn't be a real person, because you're too afraid of what your public will say. At that point, I had to do some dying." There is no protection from the barbed words of esteemed critics, demanding business standards from emotional artistry. The Wall Street Journal sliced into her performance, essentially labeling it as a breakdown, forcing her to retreat from the stigmas of mental health. The pattern has circled like a vulture time and time again, its shadow haunting our favorite Black women artists: Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and many others who have suffered in silence. In 2018, when Sza’s voice was reported damaged, she tweeted “I jus wanna be left alone my priorities are fucked up. They been fucked up. I need space goodbye.” This is just one example of the extenuating circumstances that our favorite artists have to heal from, and that we in turn, must recognize. And, that goes beyond physical struggle. Last night, Summer Walker broke from that pattern. Rather than let herself succumb to the pressures of an overzealous fan-base, she confronted her feelings of doubt and discomfort, turning to Instagram to share them with the same people she was brave enough to witness.
“I truly appreciate all the support and love. As you know, I have been very open about my struggle with social anxiety. I want to continue to be healthy and to make music for y'all, so I have decided to cut down some of the dates on the tour. I hope you all can understand. I'm grateful for every single one of you, and I hope that you understand that wellness/mental health is important. All cancelled dates will be refunded asap. Thank you. 🙏🏽🖤” But, we didn’t understand. Instead, the same people she shared her spirit with fired back like they were under personal attack. It isn’t enough that the money was refunded. It isn’t enough that a new artist felt overwhelmed by the pace of her tour and used her agency to better control it. It isn’t enough that she cared so much about her fans that she shared information about her social anxiety, trusting them to understand her need for rest. It won’t ever be enough until that traditional standard of icon is delivered: when she’s on stage at her final show, having known for months that she didn’t feel prepared. It won’t be enough until she’s reached her limit. I mean, as long as she’s delivered her tour to the audience, who cares what burden she’s left with? Just like that, we, the fans, underestimate the weight of stardom that has pressured and ruined many of the Black woman artists we claim to love, but never truly support. Self-care is not selfish. Self-care is the tool that defeats self-destruction. It isn’t anyone else’s job to push or pull you beyond your limit. Beyond all the themes of loving on men who don’t have any sense, this constant pursuit of self-love and protection, especially regarding mental health, is the piece of mirror that we haven’t been using. Instead of consistently viewing Summer and her peers as our witnesses, we also need to return the favor, and witness them. Our patronage is not our only form of support, or even our most valuable. It’s respecting artists’ wishes not to be hugged or touched, or even being the only encouraging comment in a sea of furious complaints. Sometimes, you don’t feel good as hell. Sometimes you only 13% That Bitch. Sometimes you’re a Lukewarm Girl: you’re Broke in your New Apartment, got no Motivation, and you really don’t feel like you’re in Ctrl. We should recognize and respect that feeling the best. After all, it is our lived experiences that these artists are witnessing in the first place. Works Cited https://www.mic.com/articles/124371/nearly-20-years-ago-lauryn-hill-made-an-album-so-perfect-it-nearly-ruined-her-life https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/6wqx5n/nina-simone-essay-what-happened-miss-simone-netflix-review https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8458440/sza-voice-permanently-injured-swollen-vocal-cords https://www.hot97.com/news/hot-97-now/its-over-summer-walker-cancels-rest-her-tour-due-social-anxiety
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“I also want my work to capture the vast imagination of black people. That is, I want my books to reflect the very practical, shrewd, day to day functioning that black people must do, while at the same time they encompass some great supernatural element. We know that it does not bother them one bit to do something practical and have visions at the same time. So all the parts of living are on an equal footing. Birds talk and butterflies cry, and it is not surprising or upsetting to them. These things make the world larger for them. Some young people don’t want to acknowledge this as a way of life. They don’t want to hark back to those embarrassing days when we were associated with ‘haints’ and superstitions.” - Toni Morrison Early, on a morning just like this one: when the overcast is so marbled, but the sun is so bright that the sky shines pale amber, glowing grey-gold all around you, I leaned against the bodega counter up the street from my house, waiting for my breakfast. I was also watching carefully between cigarette ads glued to the picture window frame for a glimpse of the bus that promised to carry me across the city and up the mountain to interview for a job that would never contact me again. The sandwich arrived before the bus— sausage, egg, and cheese melted into a bagel—and I brought it outside to wait under the corner store’s red awning. No one else walked the earth here: not at the gas station across the street, or at the corner to my left, where the dope boys usually bask. This was a few months back, when all that extra hurricane water kept pouring over north Jersey, not knowing that we wouldn’t be drowned; that south Jersey had tried and it just never took. The rain started and stopped at inconvenient times, like that morning, halting when no one was awake. Even without the showers, the chewed-up streets of Newark, with potholes like craters, still carried lakes of various sizes. My headphones were shot, so I stood there, listening to birds, and planes, and the quiet roar of a distant garbage truck drawing nearer. Before long, it rolled into view over the hill of Chancellor Avenue, the night-green of the collector lugged by the white cab. Apart from the driver, the other men, usually hanging from the sides of the truck, were nowhere in sight. It paused at the light, across the street, beside the gas station, and then made a left down Maple. As it swung through the intersection, the rear of the truck veered gracefully into view, revealing the other two collectors. They were squatted in the horse stance, arms lifted, clinging to the very back of the truck with their heavy boots planted firmly on the pavement. And, as the garbage truck rounded the corner, it pulled them through pools of water mixed with runoff gasoline, the fanning spray from their feet showering bright colors out over the street behind them. In their neon orange vests, reflecting all the light that found them, these men shone, teeth gleaming inside their dark beards. They drove off, singing laughter louder than the growl of the truck. I watched them go, struck so dumb by their magic that I didn’t even realize that I was laughing, too. I’m so glad this is a true story. I’m so terrified to imagine how, if not for Toni Morrison’s guiding light on Black, everyday magic, I never would have noticed the moment-to-moment miracles of the hood. White supremacy is a kaleidoscope lens, placed over a peephole that views Blackness. If we let it, it can decide how we see ourselves, feeding remarkable lies about standards of life and love and beauty. This same lens reforms cornrows as boxer braids, beauty supply dollar bamboo hoops as hundred dollar high fashion, historically Black neighborhoods as worthless unless they have been colonized. In 1986, Christina Davis interviewed Toni Morrison one year before Beloved was published. Morrison was known for harboring a deep dislike for having her writing nimbly shuffled into the genre of magical realism, which was primarily introduced by the Uruguayan writer Felisberto Hernández. The supernatural elements used by he and his contemporaries were largely meant to downplay the often radically political themes of their stories. When asked about her aversion towards the descriptor “magical realism,” Morrison answered: “My own use of enchantment simply comes because that’s the way the world was for me and for the black people I knew.…There was this other knowledge or perception, always discredited but nevertheless there, which informed their sensibilities and clarified their activities. It formed a kind of cosmology that was perceptive as well as enchanting, and so it seemed impossible for me to write about black people and eliminate that simply because it was ‘unbelievable’.” Now, I don’t make the rules. Our Black experiences can be, have been, and are, both wholly magical and wholly real. It is etched unending into the fibers of your being, just how chosen you truly are. Each mundane moment, whether you are afraid to notice it or not, holds a dazzling spirituality. The nine hours spent under the trusted hands of the alchemist, weaving marvels into your scalp in as many colors and styles as there are stars. The buzzing propinquity summoned by a circle of you and your friends doing nothing, chilling, shooting the shit, sharing sunflower seeds and people watching on the porch. The instant at the cookout where a sudden chime over the speakers paves the way for blaring, noble trumpets, announcing the swag surf, convoking strangers to kin, arms linked in a nameless, joyous, triumphant kind of Black freedom. These blessings are so easy to overlook, invisible to the eyes of those who disdain it for not suddenly belonging to them when they try to Grinch it from our fingers like Christmas. It may be popular to view Blackness through the peephole that deems it uncouth, ghetto, ratchet, or any other title white supremacy has greedily latched onto to use for its lens. But, even through that peephole, our Blackness views us right back. It tells you that you are beautiful, powerful, and chosen, even when you feel forgotten. Especially when you feel forgotten. It sends signs that society tells you to ignore; goes out of its way to grin at you in the street while white supremacy does that weird shift-eyed, lip-press, nodding shit. Y'all know what I'm talmbout. It is every ancestor, who only ever existed for you to walk the earth. It is the bad ass kids hopping fences through everyone’s backyards. It is your mama. It is God. It is the perfectly natural supernatural that Toni Morrison was brave enough to face, beyond the lens, and braver still to show the world, recording in her golden tomes that Blackness, in all its oppressed, dehumanized, and brutalized reality, continues to be pretty damn magical. Works Cited
Christina Davis, “An Interview with Toni Morrison,” in Taylor-Guthrie, Conversations, 242–43. Interview originally published in 1987. Lipinski, Jed. “Meet Felisberto Hernández, the Father of Magic Realism.” Village Voice, 5 Aug. 2008, www.villagevoice.com/2008/08/05/meet-felisberto-hernndez-the-father-of-magic-realism/. Nellie Y. McKay, “An Interview with Toni Morrison,” in Conversations with Toni Morrison, edited by Danielle Taylor Guthrie (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), 153. Interview originally published in 1983 . So. It’s been a week. Seven days out of the new year; enough time to fully understand, analyze, and statistically map out precisely how you want the next twenty years of your life to pan. Or, you know, the next twenty seconds. As for my review of 2018: imagine swimming through dark ocean depths, never knowing where or when you’ll finally find a pocket of air.
Yeah. That bad. I’ve never believed in New Year’s resolutions, mostly because of that first week or so, when even the most sincere of goals shuts down faster than our government. I just don’t believe in waiting for a chance to change what I already know I don’t love about myself. Now, that list is long as hell. What we love and hate about ourselves all boils down to the parts we want to save and the parts we want to change, but desperately fear we can’t. It’s a lot easier to hide the ugly elements so other people can guess at the reasons for our toxic behaviors than it is to be upfront with how we really feel, for our own sake. It’s the seconds that matter. The impact of our choices lies in how we spend them. I want to focus more on bravery. I think it defeats every habit I hate most about myself. Whether it’s writing more, submitting more, reaching out more, getting out of the house more, every potential action I face is one that requires courage. It takes having a true fear to face that fear in the first placed. A lot of my depression stems from a fear of failure (obviously originating from delusions of grandeur) as well as a fear of rejection (we up to fifteen letters y’all). I had to catch and correct myself, because I realized I was becoming That Person. The one who scares easily at the hint of a challenge; who balks at the sheer size and weight of competition; who talks herself out of opportunities so that they never have the chance to deny her first. Within this first new week a lot of the same old bullshit has already taken place. My new laptop had already been stolen (da fuck), I was rejected from another contest, rejected from a higher-paying job (whatever, fuck y’all too), and was already experiencing death in the family. And that served as a vital reminder. Just because there is a new year, it doesn’t automatically imply that the Shit-o-Meter is reset with good karma and dumb luck. Shit is always going to happen. Your determination is always going to be tested. You can’t choose every failure you experience. But you can choose whether or not it causes you to fail. That can only happen if you stop and choose to be That Person instead of That Bitch. I realized, no matter what, I don't want to be the type of person who wants to do something but doesn't, and all out of fear. These ugly, sad bits are the parts you can’t skip. I used to believe that it was enough to keep pushing just to spite other people or other institutions. But it isn’t. I want to move forward because I’ve earned it; because I adapted and grew from the hard times instead of succumbing to them. The habits you've used to upkeep your comfort zone in your profession, education, and relationships aren't helpful. Survival mode won't serve if you want to level up. It requires self-discipline and accountability rather than constant self-placation. Don’t short change your true ability. Imagine swimming through dark ocean depths. Imagine giving up before discovering a cave, with a treasure trove, just one kick and one gasp ahead of you. If there’s any factor of 2019 hype I agree with, it’s this: Everything you want is absolutely attainable. You just have to be brave enough to swim for it. The old adage holds that the love of money is the root of all evil.
And that’s cool. That’s fine. I don’t love money. I just have a really deep, profoundly intimate, slightly cosmic respect for it. In all seriousness, cash is king, and never more so than when your post-graduate debt starts rising like the d*mn flood. You may end up wishing you’d majored in something other than the Humanities (English majors, where you at). I corner myself nightly wishing I had studied something a little bit more lucrative. Regardless of your personal beliefs concerning money, you probably need it. We aspire for monetary success so greatly that we end up stunting for each other: expensive trips, bills, eating out, bills, shopping sprees, bills, and nights out all add up. Also, bills. They can leave you suffering in silence, wondering why you can’t keep up with your friends. What you don’t know is that all the while, your friends are wondering why they can’t keep up with you. There you have it: nobody getting to the money. Everybody mad. It’s easy to claim that this is because of the culture. Sure, there’s a certain expectation of lifestyle and fashion that we all hold each other to. But, we’re really flexing for our own egos. Why? Because we know we don’t f*cking deserve this sh*t. Your bank account does not reflect your worth. You deserve happiness. You deserve health care. You deserve a free education. You deserve the job you studied for. You deserve to be able to go out with your friends. You deserve to experience the world without them pending transactions “coming to you as an individual.” I try to prepare for this by paying myself as well as every other bill. Whether it’s $50, $30, even $5 out of every check, it will add up. Anything is better than nothing. I try not to overextend myself with the extracurricular activities, too. I give myself no more than two nights a month for accepting invitations to go out. Ion even be using them nights all that much because? I’m depressed?? Both financially and emotionally, socializing costs a grip. You never really have to pay to go out when you’re in school. I was a pretty happy b*tch when I was dancing, and so I know that I can be again. It’s easier and a lot less harmful with just a little preparation. You feel like you’re turning into a miser, but protecting your finances just means you’re *gasp* turning into a functioning adult. And I love that adult, just like I love that happy b*tch. While I can’t say that I love money, their comfort and security is what causes me to respect it. You think it’s a door. But it’s not.
You think there are walls, frames, bells, knobs and rules, but there aren’t. All your life, you’ve been preparing to step through a portal that’s been prepared for you — only to discover that it never existed in the first place. Post-graduate living is not easy, quiet as it’s kept. You expect to embark on some fruitful and fulfilling adventure, mounting with the intensity of a Netflix binge, but that’s all false advertisement. Whether you’re travelling far or returning back to home, an intense and characteristically silent struggle may await you. And it can get pretty ugly. That unemployment sh*t sure ain’t cute. First (and arguably worst) is the application process. Whether you’re using LinkedIn or Glassdoor, WayUp or Indeed, the majority of application legwork is done online. It makes it extremely easy to start hamster-wheeling through upsetting cycles. Mine is sleep. In undergraduate, I always prided myself on being a self-starting, ambitious, and collaborative writer (@jobrecruiters). I loved being able to showcase my intellect and develop impressive projects. Being idle so often, and for such long periods of time, left me in a serious rut that grows deeper and wider with each passing day, when I let it. It’s terrifying how easy it is to let your days bleed into each other, consistently trying not to think and praying that the next time you open your e-mail, one of your fleet of applications will have returned with positive results. Compared to that? Them depression naps slap. It’s hard enough, trying to break that cycle. What makes it harder is thinking that you’re alone, and that’s the most I’ll write about that, because you’re not. Social media is a rapid-fire deception; a highlight reel of successes. Only in your room, in your bed, in your mind are you completely exposed to your truth. Mine is rejection letters. I’ve been collecting them sh*ts like stamps. Grad school apps, employment apps, writing magazine submissions, writing contest submissions; every ugly No I’ve received from the past year stays neatly tucked into a folder under my bed. Even out of sight, they can make me feel worthless. So varied, and never far between, they explain that I’m not good enough without ever explaining why. I decided to start framing them. A la Jessica James, I hang them on my wall (without looking at them too closely) and I keep writing anyway. Traditionally, we’re taught that opportunity is a door, or window, or whatever-the-f*ck sort of threshold, where transitioning is as simple as stepping from something old to something new. If you’re still reading this, it’s likely because you also realize that this is bullsh*t. Adulting is not a door, but the clear, snowy field you wake up in after being clubbed over the head. And you can walk in any direction you choose. You can even change directions, you can backtrack, you can even walk in circles. It can be so overwhelming, because this is a constant journey without a destination. Behind you is every footprint you’ve ever made. Before you is every mark you have left to make. It can get pretty ugly, but every day you choose to challenge that field gives you the chance to make it beautiful. |
AuthorWe all can get pretty sad. Archives
November 2019
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