The Alvearie

My anger could rip open the beltway and swallow the rush hour traffic whole. I see the mangled carcass of the cybertruck in front of me disintegrate in my bloodthirsty teeth, primed for revenge.

I am a Black femme, vacillating between anger and apathy after November 5, 2024. The rejection of Kamala Harris was no surprise, but the overwhelming explicit support for white supremacy is one more drop of torture stretching my soul thin. The debates about Black masculinity, Palestine, mixed-race identities; the silence on Haiti, Sudan, Congo–all with shades of misogynoir as Harris became the target for everyone’s anger with the United States. 

My body rejected the election before I even knew the results. It is still rejecting this country–has always been, it seems. The labyrinth of emotions that has been the past week has been mixed in with blood rushing out of my body, as it does every new moon. It’s been an odd culmination of events. Premenstrual depression freezing me from productivity transitioning into pre-election anxiety that flared into a migraine and flung me into dark immobility; anemic blood loss that sunk my emotional tolerance. Something seems divine, but in the most terrible way. Despite all this turbulence, my mind has been in a peaceful haze. I have listened to my body and stopped, froze, succumbed to the darkness. I give much thanks to my anti-anxiety meds and therapist, and I am coming to appreciate how my ancestors and the universe have forced me into perspective. 

My blood stains the ground with a refusal to nurture. 

It is no stretch to see how Black femmes are burdened with responsibility. Many African continental and diaspora cultures have matriarchal histories (i.e. Nzengou-Tayo,1998; Wekker, 2006), including in the United States. Black women earn degrees at a disproportionately high rate in relation to our population, #BlackGirlMagic has spawned initiatives across various domains, and we are the fastest-growing population of entrepreneurs. But these are capitalist measures. They distort the Strong Black Woman from being a carefully cultivated cultural role into a linear set of goals–a zero-sum game where if one does not attain a degree or open a business, we become Welfare Queen. Black femmes cannot be valuable unless we oversucceed, and even then, we must know our place.

From Nikole Hannah-Jones to Megan Thee Stallion, Black femmes are expected to lead the revolution and then cede our place when it seems that we may overshadow whiteness/masculinity. This American notion of the Strong Black Woman feminizes the responsibility of family culture in ballroom (Bailey, 2013) and makes Mamala out of a former attorney general/U.S. senator and current vice president. When we visibly get the power (see: audacity) to declare our truths as realities and declare that they become the fabric of policy, we are violently pushed down.

For all of the Black feminist leaders and scholars that so-called critical people love to cite, how many have become leaders of institutions? An even better question–how many have enjoyed a long comfortable retirement? June Jordan and Audre Lorde died of breast cancer at 58 and 65, respectively. Sheila Abdus-Salaam and Martha P. Johnson were both recovered from the Hudson River under mysterious circumstances. 

Zora Neale Hurston was buried in an unmarked grave.

To be a Black femme is to be celebrated when you are no longer in the room. 

In the hands of America, our Black matriarchal responsibility is twisted into a fleshy pillow (Spillers, 1987) to soak up white tears. This is why rest is resistance (Hersey, 2022) and finding true pleasure is a revolutionary journey for so many Black femmes (brown, 2019). We are taught that motherhood is mandatory. Wild success is possible, early death inevitable. Humanity is questionable. We experience this time and time again, and yet we keep going because we have no choice but to live.

And so at times like this, when the inevitable rejection is so violently flung in our face, we face a dilemma as old as the United States. We have been taught that we must either stand up or lay down in defeat. But there is a long legacy of Black femmes simply saying No. The Nap Ministry is part of that genealogy, but what of Black girlhood (Garner et al., 2019) that sweats under fans for hours on humid summer days? What about Black girls and gays who play video games? We learned long ago to stop when it’s too hot even under the threat of the whip, and to play even when robbed of toys. Our pleasure has always been fugitive and our rest always in our blood (Hartman, 2019). 

So, in this moment when all the white people who have never thought to pay me while stealing my ideas seek to cry on my shoulders, I invoke my Taurus grandmother and say No. For the month of November (if not longer) when America routinely shows its full ass through elections or Thanksgiving or both, I refuse. I say No.

Do not ask me to take on more work. Do not ask me to be a Black body at your party. My shoulder is not one to cry on, my thoughts not up for contribution. I am not available to give you a ride or share my food. You have already taken so much, and you deserve nothing more. 

Works Cited

Bailey, M. M. (2007). Butch queens up in pumps: Gender, performance, and ballroom culture in Detroit. University of Michigan Press.

brown, a. m. (2019). Pleasure activism: The politics of feeling good. AK Press.

Garner, P. R., Hill, D. C., Robinson, J. L., & Callier, D. M. (2019). Uncovering Black girlhood(s): Black girl pleasures as anti-respectability methodology. American Quarterly, 71(1), pp. 191-97.

Hartman, S. (2019). Wayward lives, beautiful experiments: Intimate histories of riotous Black girls, troublesome women, and queer radicals. W. W. Norton & Company. 

Hersey, T. (2022). Rest is resistance: A manifesto. Little, Brown Spark.

Nzengou-Tayo, M-J. (1998). ‘Fanm se Poto Mitan’: Haitian woman, the pillar of society. Feminist Review, 59, pp. 118–42. 

Spillers, H. J. (1987). Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: An American grammar book. Diacritics, 17(2), pp. 64-81.

Wekker, G. (2006). Politics of passion: Women’s sexual culture in the Afro-Surinamese diaspora. Columbia University Press.