Beyonce performs in Cleveland, Ohio, on Nov. 4, 2016. | AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File
Published on February 14, 2024 at 7:31 pm
“Try to find some places to infuse more joy.”
That was the advice from my literary agent last year before we took my forthcoming book on submission to publishers. The novel is, at times, heavy. There is drama and violence in addition to perseverance and love. The story peels back the layers of history, ugly in some of its honesty, to show how that history ripples throughout generations.
But what of joy?
I understood the note when my agent gave it to me but struggled to find places within the narrative to let it shine. To offer levity amidst all the gravity. As I worked on the revision I asked a friend to assess my new pages by answering a single question, “Is this joy?”
It’s not that I can’t identify joy as an act or emotion but I also don’t want to bastardize or commodify the curated spaces within the Black community where we are unabashedly, unashamedly, and happily unafraid to live into with all 32 of our teeth on display.
The hashtag #blackjoy signals a kind of shorthand for memes, videos, images, and other media, movement, or cultural displays that show Black people in life in ways that are often antithetical to how we are taught.
It is after all Black History Month. A month where we celebrate the history, perseverance, and achievements of Black people. But the centuries-long experiences of an entire people can’t be neatly celebrated in 28 or 29 days without missing a few key folk and their contributions.
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And this is not a read about Black History Month being celebrated in the shortest month of the year. A month chosen by the founder of what was initially Black History Week, Carter G. Woodson, to honor the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and Frederick Douglass (February 14)—a birthday Douglass chose for himself having been enslaved and never knowing the true date of his birth.
Rather, this is an exploration of the ways we don’t but should celebrate the pioneering spirit that has resulted in #blackjoy.
Like, we don’t talk about Lonnie Johnson enough. The man gave us the super-soaker: what should be the patron play-thing of the Sunshine State with its seemingly endless summer. Is it not joy when you see a rag-tag group of kids with their neon-colored water weapons ducking and dodging one another, trying not to get wet but secretly wishing they go home dripping?
Is it not joy to hear the transition between Frankie Beverly and Maze’s “Before I Let Go,” into Beyoncé’s version and the whole crowd at the cookout continues to electric slide whether they’re 5—still learning the steps—or 85 with a cane, walker or in a wheelchair?
Joy abounds in Blackness beyond televised displays like Usher’s Super Bowl halftime performance or Jay-Z’s accepting a Grammy while reading the Grammys for filth on behalf of his aforementioned wife.
It is in the music we make, the dances we create, and the food we eat, yes, but it’s also in the way we do our hair, adorn our bodies, and glide through life as if the strife we endured wasn’t worth mentioning.
I write a lot about the ongoing hurts, harms, and injuries to Black people because it is important to connect the dots of history to this present moment in the name of freedom and Black liberation. But in life I lean heavily into joy, pursuing what makes my soul smile and my heart sing.
When my agent gave me the note on my manuscript last year it was both necessary for the story but also in line with forecasted publishing trends that “Black joy” was expected to be the hot new theme following the real life grief of “the COVID years.” But this timeless juxtaposition is indicative of the Black experience as it is both taught and lived, regardless of fleeting trends.
There is no denying the over-emphasis on pain, oppression and struggle because racism is real and white supremacy wakes up every day. But joy is not an afterthought. It is intentional. And as Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts wrote, it is resistance, resilience, and restoration. The fullness of our humanity is impossible without joy. Black people would not have and won’t survive without it.
The blues may be our foundation but pop is our prophecy. The ebullience of music, the rhythms of dance, the rending of writings, the ways of food, and the creation of culture is steeped in Blackness.
Joy is devoir.
It is divine.
And it is mine.
Lead image: Beyonce performs in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2016. | AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
