Cockiness

A brown-skinned celebrity of African descent

Made a post on Instagram today saying she was happy.

Understandably so,

Her song is doing really well;

Number 4 on TikTok.

A fan of unknown ethnic descent commented on the post

Saying they were sad

That Black men are being murdered in this country,

And asked how she felt about this,

Without commenting on or acknowledging her happiness.

It annoyed me,

Because it felt like a challenge,

As if right now we are not allowed to be happy,

As if it is shameful

To continue to feel emotions other than rage and sadness and fear,

As if we are not multifaceted creatures

Who can live contradictory emotions

In one setting.

This brown-skinned artist of African descent can be happy

And also sad.

Assuming Black people

Will stop feeling daily feelings

Is like holding our hearts hostage,

When it’s bad enough that we can’t jog or breathe or gather in groups at church.

Don’t tell us we can’t be happy,

Or that it is shameful to dream and laugh.

Just like everything else we do,

As we merely exist in these complexions,

Our joy is an act of resistance.

Our happiness is radical.

And we are allowed to grieve and mourn without making a public display of our anguish,

And not perform it for you

To prove that we want justice served.

My sense of well-being

In this country that hates me

Is cocky and proud,

And I will keep laughing and living

And being happy,

And kissing my brown-skinned Black boyfriend while I am still praying

That he will die of old age and natural causes.

Ask yourself

What witnessing Black people mourn and suffer on public display does for you,

And why you assume that because we don’t invite you to view

Our most intimate moments of tears and whispered prayers,

That we do not feel.

We are kaleidoscopic majesties

Our joy and grief and our trauma and victory

Run at depths too deep for some to fathom

And their ignorance leads them to assume

That we are bold and shameful in our rich legacy of feeling

and living and breathing

such daily contradictions

that make perfect sense

to brown-skinned people of African descent.