Author: TRACEY MICHAE’L LEWIS-GIGGETTS article, Black Joy in Pursuit of Racial Justice
I’ve been longing to talk about all the ways in which these last couple of years have been so much of a gift for me. And yet I struggle with holding that fact in the same space with all the ways these last couple of years have challenged the very core of who I am as a human being and the way I navigate this world as a Black woman. And yet, in writing my book Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration, I’ve learned that the ancestral legacy of our joy tells me I don’t have to choose.
My great-grandmother understood the difference between joy and happiness. The latter, a temporary state of being, may have felt the same as the former in that there was that same adrenaline or dopamine rush. But Nanny knew how to call on the ever-present undercurrent of joy, even when happy moments were few and far between. It’s why she rocked that pain out of her body in those church pews. It’s why that great-great-aunt would wind that pain out of her hips at the juke joint. My ancestors knew that they didn’t have to go out and find joy. They knew that joy, unlike happiness, is something that we’re born with; it’s our birthright. They clearly understood what Octavia Raheem writes in her book Pause, Rest, Be: Stillness Practices for Courage in Times of Change: “Joy is an act of rebellion. And so is allowing ourselves to feel our grief.” They knew that joy and pain, joy and rage, joy and grief occupy the same vessel.
Joy is Black when it lives within the particular historical and cultural experience of Black people across the African diaspora. Our joy transforms those often-traumatic experiences—the results of White supremacy—into something distinctly ours. By virtue of this 400-year liberation journey we’ve been on, Black people have always held joy simultaneously in our bodies with rage and sorrow. That part isn’t new.
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