How to Survive in a Country at War with Your Body

By Dhari Noel

Last year fall, the ground shook, opened up, and swallowed me whole. It wasn’t the first time that there had been a high profile case of violence against a black man with no indictment. I have very clear memory of growing up in New York during Amadou Diallo, and Sean Bell. My reaction to each of their deaths and the trials and politics that followed, was a well-crafted numbness. When I heard of the Mike Brown case, I felt numb and moved on. Then, slowly, cases started accumulating back to back. I still managed to have a numbness, as if this was everyday violence. In retrospect, I understand that I had accumulated an embarrassing capacity to tolerate this violence. Then something changed in me. The non-indictment of Darren Wilson, the death of Akai Gurley, watching the full video of Eric Garner’s death, seeing small vigils, it all happened back to back so quickly that I had no time to breath. I became speechless and all I could do was scream or cry or sing. It clicked in my head that any one of those men and children could be me, my father, my uncle, my nephew, my cousin, my friend. It finally clicked in my head that these were not isolated cases but a systemic issue. This suddenly turned into an issue of survival.

I called every black role model in my life the night that I heard there was no indictment for Eric Garner’s murderer. I asked them to tell me what to do. Each man, with voices so weak compared the power I usually associated with them, told me to be careful; They knew I’d be protesting. They had nothing else to say. That power they once had after Obama won, when black families walked with pride knowing that they were no longer lying when they told their children they could be anything they wanted. It was lost that night. We were pulled back to our defining reality. The safety of our bodies, or lack thereof in the United States.

The most eerie part of this and possibly the most maddening was that everything around me was going along as if nothing had changed. It was not only me that had become desensitized to the violence. The difference is that I was forced to recognize my position.  My friends continued their school work and professors continued their classes. This heightened political moment was during the most stressful time of the school year, we were approaching thanksgiving which is the beginning of the end of the semester. Throughout, I was going to protests regularly, staying awake until around 4 AM, walking for miles each night. I barely did any work. It was physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting. Watching police push, shove, and pepper spray fellow protestors, people right next to you, is challenging in a way that I don’t know how to express adequately. I have been participating in protests since I was a child and more actively once I started college so I knew that not many people join in in the beginning but the actions became larger, large multi-racial, multi-generational, across all social barriers. Still, life around me at university was pretty much the same. The usual suspects who went to protests continued to do so and everyone else basically did nothing.

For the biggest action of the movement last fall, there were two Million Man Marches. I went down to the march in Washington D.C. and there was an even larger one in New York City. When I came back to New York I saw my friends seated in their usual position in their apartments. I asked them if they had attended the March. Estimates of the attendees of the march were between 10 and 50 thousand people. The event lasted from about midday to nightfall, basically an entire Saturday. When I learned that there was a large majority of of my peers who had not attended the march I had several feelings.

The first was a deep level of insult. It felt like neglect of my existence and the realities that I may have to face. I felt like this was an “issue” to them that could be listed in priority beneath their school work. Most of my friends used the old, unoriginal, and lazy excuse that protesting was not an effective way to create change, as if there is a directly effective way to stop, disrupt, or deconstruct the prison industrial complex, an issue so deeply historical and institutionalized beyond governmental reach.

This pain transformed into fear. I realized that I was in one of the most prestigious universities of the world. That my peers were people who intimidated me often with their intelligence. That my professors are some of the world’s leading scholars. That these people loved me and I loved them, and in an honest and truthful way. Yet the majority of them felt no responsibility to stand up, to support, to march, to catalyze discussion, to use their status as a tool. It was in that moment when I realized how destitute my body really is. My survival is only my responsibility. When I realized some of the people I love and respect the most have no intention of creating change, not because they are racist, don’t understand, or don’t care, but because they just don’t care enough. I realized how lonely I am in this state sanctioned tightrope between life and death. Would they march if it was me who died? Do they understand that the details only matter a minimal amount, that this could very easily happen to anyone they knew?

After this realization, I forgave my friends. I no longer find it a beneficial use of energy to try to inspire my peers to see a purpose in their unique talents other than the betterment of just themselves. I used this learning opportunity as a moment to develop how I see myself, my purpose, and my plan for survival. 

This is what I have come up with so far: How to survive in a country at war with your body

First let me define body:

I use body referring to the most physical definition possible. Opposite of the spirit. The physical actual body that you can kiss, hug, smell. When speaking about the United States’ history of violence we say things like the spirit lives on which is true in a way but does not mean we can’t be aware of our physical realities. Sean Bell’s body is gone. Eric Garner’s body is gone. Michael Brown’s body is gone. Amadou Diallo’s body is gone. Sandra Bland’s body is gone. Their spirits live on yes because they are used as  the motivation for us now. We remember and never forget their names so that we may make sure that we change the system that killed. But their bodies are gone. Their hopes dreams and their issues are gone too. Think about them not as a symbol but as real human beings who had a favorite sibling but wouldn’t ever tell, who has a favorite meal, that is excited for an upcoming party, is obsessed with a certain movie, has memories of their first love, experienced loss and happiness. These are real people. This is gone.

Live

The first and probably most essential way to survive and maintain my body is to live. To live in the most robust and extraordinary way possible. There is no guarantee in this country that your career or socioeconomic value will protect you from the fact that your skin color often deems you inferior. We have Henry Louis Gates Jr., James Blake, Forrest Whitaker, and many others to thank for this lesson. The only way to persevere through institutionalized racism, systematic oppression, and pure violence against your body is to do just that, persevere. I learned through my activism that tactics to avoid the police or to stay safe, all passed down to me from generations of fear, are actually hindrances to my living a full life. I will not limit myself because of the fear that someone will take my body away. I will not live in fear. I will live. Claiming every opportunity as they may come, just like any other person. I will live. With the simple outrageous goal of pleasing me, not as a responsibility towards my ancestors or my friends or family, unless that pleases me too, but for my personal growth. For my growth as a human being. Survival is in a full, complex, deep, spiritual, and peaceful life.

The next tactic is to Create

It has always been clear to me that people of African descent across this globe, and oppressed groups in general are extremely creative and expressive people. I learned throughout my studies and my experiences with art that being creative is a way to release and gain a voice that you may not have had access to anywhere else. In a very academic way, I understood that there was a way to speak using art. After this past year it has been hard to find words to speak about the state of my body and its safety in this country; this true experience of being speechless, not even knowing the vocabulary to discuss or dissect your feelings much as to explain them, this speechlessness made me understand a new use of creativity. Create with purpose, create to explain, create to dissect, create to intimidate or to challenge, create to make peace, create to apologize, create to say thank you, and create without borders or restrictions. This goes beyond a painting or a song, but in terms of relationships, spaces, energy, and moments. Take the time to create the spaces that you want to see, that are critical, safe, caring, supportive, and sometimes disruptive. Take the time to create the relationships that you want to have; to produce the energy you need. This form or view of creation can also be combined with artistic expression. Often as a black male artist, I feel overlooked in casting rooms, I never suspect that it is because my directors or producers are outright racist, but because they too live and are subject to racist systemic ideology that was created long before any of us were even a thought. I now have learned that it is important to demand access to creativity. To create boldly or radically is to collaborate, and truly truly allow everyone access to their best work. I have learned that I must demand to audition and be fully considered for every role, regardless if it doesn’t fit my “type.” I learned that creativity is both large and small, is both sensitive and aggressive, that it is both revolutionary and therapeutic. Creating potentially creates the space for other bodies to survive with you.

Finally, the most important method to survival is love.

At a die-in last year, I laid on the pavement in the freezing winter shivering because I was in only a suit since I had to perform directly after the protest. I felt a love that I had never experienced before. The space was cramped and we could feel each other’s shivering bodies. Our instructions were to stay on the ground until we heard a certain vocal cue, but we didn’t know exactly when that cue would happen. The bodies next to me shivered as much as I did. We all knew that standing at that moment would ruin the message, ruin the creative moment. The love was a form of respect, it was a form of devotion to the message, to a goal, it was a form of radical appreciation, the fact that we loved and trusted each other to be vulnerable. A deep, radical, sensual, otherworldly type of love. This love is important especially when directed towards the self. Self-love is the single most important lesson I have accumulated from the tragedies and activism of the past year. Radical self-love is more than the aesthetics. It is more than loving my dark skin or my hair or my clothes or even my culture or my food or anything like that. It is believing that I am worthy of love, deserving of empathy and care, that I have earned the right to be comfortable and happy because I know that it is a responsibility as well as a gift. Radical self-love exists outside of comparisons with others, in fact it breeds love and appreciation for other beings. Radical self-love is the total and complete acceptance of anything that comes your way, and gives confidence that you will survive it. It gives you a certain type of grace that no degree, experience, or training can ever commodify. Loving others in this deep way, loving their being, as well as loving yourself are the keys to survival. They are also the key to change. What is so beautiful about the Black Lives Matter campaign, or at least one way to look at it, is that it is a movement, just within its name, that yearns and pleads for the love of black bodies. For love and tenderness towards black life

Living, creating, and loving are the three lessons I choose to employ now. I don’t know how they will change. There are many other tactics such as education, hard work, and excellence, but too often those goals when targeted to people of color, specifically of African descent, are packaged with the philosophy that we must work twice as hard. As Ta-Nehisi Coates explains, this is problematic because this “motivational phrase” actually suggests that we must expect half as much. Living, Creating, and Loving will sufficiently supply the strength that those familiar catch-phrases try to instill.

In conclusion; I’m a twenty-two year old just out of college who still is working hard to get his act together. I’m still learning all of the names; of the victims as well as the inspirations, and of our past leaders. I don’t feel like I’m necessarily the best source; I can’t speak for anyone besides me. But I am honored to be invited to share my voice with you. Thank You.