The Reality of Existing While Black

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stressed about the upcoming election. With everything that has happened this year, an election added to 2020 has made an already anxiety ridden year unbearable.

I spent many nights up until the wee hours of the morning, physically exhausted but my mind raced scrolling through endless content. You may have guessed it but binging social media during a global pandemic is a recipe for trauma overload.

What will happen in November?

Will I be targeted?

Will my friends be safe?

What’s going to happen to our community?

I, like so many others, feel as though I have to limit my exposure to the world outside of my apartment. With Idaho’s conservative politics culture I fear angry, ignorant people who carry guns. I hold my breath forcing myself to walk to the end of my block while quickly picking up the pace to get back home.

I stopped riding with the car windows down because a young Black woman was shot and killed in the intersection of her city a few months ago. I don’t wear hoods anymore for fear I could be mistaken for a Black man and shot. I don’t ride my bike because I’m afraid someone may hit me or worse. I make my location known to loved ones because I don’t feel safe here or anywhere anymore.

This is the world I know now and while I will be okay, my life will never be the same; a constant cycle of fear and anxiety anytime I have to leave my home, looking over my shoulder, scanning perimeters, keeping track of neighborhood faces. Being on a high alert at all times is something shared among many Black people.

My friends are scared to go out alone or to be out past dark. These are situations we never dreamed of, being afraid for our lives everyday while expected to show up and be productive, meanwhile we’re choking back tears and saying we’re good when we are not because our experience is a lived one that cannot be understood through books and podcasts. And hearing, ‘I’m here for you’ brings little comfort because those same people are not equipped through education or lived experience to provide any comfort.

So where does that leave us? I come from a line of perseverance, of odds stacked against us, and creating windows when doors close. I stopped being afraid of death because for me it seems closer and imminent.

Nothing this far in my life has broken me beyond repair because I have a quiet rooted determination to find my way to the other side and it’s never failed me yet. With each new wound of this year I have to treat it and wear it as a badge of growth and pain, taking the strength with me as I go.