wazobiann (@wazobiann): bruh this narrative that’s spreading is buggin me out. just because two young, hypervisible, Black women are publicly stepping back doesn’t mean Black women are resting. we’re still working, stressed, underpaid, and under resourced. there’s no structural rest in place for us yet.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): it must be a class thing. why are we unlooking the realities of the community so loudly?
wazobiann (@wazobiann): i'm going to need more data to tell this story better and to help us start imagining what rest looks like for Black *women, queer Black folx, disabled Black folx, and Black folx all over the world.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): until then, as a Black person living on your side of the world, what does sustained rest look like for you?
wazobiann (@wazobiann): This is what I’m talking about. https://www.glamour.com/story/simone-biles-naomi-osaka-and-the-revolutionary-power-of-black-womens-rest/
wazobiann (@wazobiann): This statement is categorically and empirically not true. “Simone stepping away didn’t just challenge the status quo, it obliterated it.”
wazobiann (@wazobiann): This gets us back to status quo:
“Taking one’s rest is so vital and revolutionary for Black women because every single day we wake up and proverbially build Rome, often without the proper tools needed or support necessary to solidify a foundation,” says Ru Johnson
wazobiann (@wazobiann): :speaking_head_in_silhouette: QTNA:
“What do we do to hold our women and girls up when the rest of the world won't? How do we make it our responsibility to love and protect each other?” says Evans-Clark.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): MORE QTNA:
“And not just those of us on Olympic stages, but Black women with and without jobs, the unhoused, Black queer women and femmes. We have some questions to answer within our own homes.”
wazobiann (@wazobiann): Y’all not interviewing enough poor, disabled, unhoused, working class Black women to be making these claims of revolutionary rest.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): Revolution only happens within a system. The systems of Black women’s rest are not trending towards revolution. Yet.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): Pushing back on this narrative is so important because Black women’s mortality rates, across borders and intersections, are devastating. We’re barely making it through this thing called life.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): And as of July 28, 2021 AD, the only structural support Black women have is OTHER Black women. Please. Let us look at the true things.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): I’m collecting the data, collating the receipts. I plan to publish a long read to AFROLICIOUS in October. We need to tell a different story.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): you know what it is? looking at how shitty things are, at how much suffering there is in our Black communities across national borders would make us go collectively insane.
wazobiann (@wazobiann): and i don't mean "insane in the membrane" type insane.
i mean we would suffer a visceral and disabling break with reality. we would go mad. and we are trying so hard to keep it together.