On Stepping Back from the Trauma of Discussing our Murders

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Tyre Nichols.

I have plenty of words. And yet none at all. The whole of social media holds them. Especially the Black community. They’ve said it all. As they have said it once before. And the time before that.

And the time before that.

I hold these words I don’t want to release. These tears I don’t want to shed. Because I have done it all before. And I fear I will have to do it all again.

Torn between grieving in silence and regurgitating recycled words.

I am exhausted reading the thoughts of my skinfolk. Tired and yet they still continue. They have said the same things before. They flip the language a bit but the message remains the same.

They give a crash course in what systemic means. They find a way to preemptively strike against the ignorance that is sure to come because Black officers murdered Nichols. They inform their audience that white supremacy works so well because it is the systems that allow it to do so. They give us essays on how Black people can maintain the very systems that cause us great harm. Over and over and over again.

And then they will tell us not to watch nor share the video. Tell us that we don’t need to consume that kind of trauma, this is what we live with, daily. What we need to see it for? We know they don’t treat the murder of white folk like some world premiere film you just can’t miss, with media coverage and a countdown that would rival any primetime red carpet event.

I didn’t think I was tired until Nichols. He was one too many. I had no number. There wasn’t this predetermined threshhold I was to reach before I was like, “damn, this is too much.” It’s ALL too much. All the time. And I wasn’t allowing myself to sit with that and establish the boundaries I needed to protect myself.

Too busy thinking I would betray my work if I didn’t make a demonstrative showing of my anger and grief at this latest unaliving by State violence. Feeling this guilt for not addressing it. Spent countless hours writing essay after essay over Nichols’ death. Same as I do with all the others, Tamir, George, Amaud, Sandra, Breonna…and on.

And on.

I have plenty to say. And nothing to say. I am dancing around the pain I feel at the moment. I am afraid that if I allow my self to feel, I will feel too much. The heartbreak of seeing his Mama at those podiums breathing life into the memory of her son. Learning that his last few words were spent on calling for his Mama. Much like George. We as Black people feel too much when it comes to each other. Because we are treated like one another, no matter where we live. No matter where we grew up. We do not know the safety and protection that white folks do.

These murders, one after the next, are a pain that I cannot even describe. It’s nothing like his Mama’s, but it guts us so fucking bad. Cause this could easily be us.

Easily.

And I teeter between sharing my thoughts and not. A fucking pro/con list for speaking up about the murder of yet another Black man. Who performs cost/benefit analyses to decide whether they should talk about the brutal nature in which our bodies are governed, controlled, and tossed aside?

I do.

Because I don’t have it in me to talk about this. Not right now. I am filled with words. And yet the silence is what I need at the moment.

Because I cannot teach you right now.

I cannot guide others on how to talk about police brutality.

I cannot inform you that one doesn’t need to be white to uphold supremacist institutions. White supremacy is foundational within whiteness and whiteness is a social construct that not only white people maintain.

This world is full of beautiful Black educators and social justice advocates who can hold it down while I channel energy elsewhere for a bit. I cannot be a carrier for trauma because that is all you see me to be. Too many of you consume Black pain as if it were sustenance that sustained you.

I haven’t allowed myself to grieve these losses properly because I have spent so much time trying to educate people in the wake of one of our own drawing their last breath because someone (or “someones”) didn’t think them worthy and beautiful enough for this world. Like flowers from gardens, they are plucked from the soil.

I have covered myself in taking to the pen and pad for weeks straight educating to the point of burnout every single time a Black person is harmed or unalived by State violence.

I have plenty to say but right now…I have nothing to share.