By Kejhonti Neloms
I nod my head at other niggas when I see them in the streets. They nod their heads back, too. I watch Black people’s backs at all times. I expect you to be watching mine. I pay attention to all of my exits. I am always ready to run or fight at any given moment. I keep my windows covered. I keep my blinds closed. I never leave my doors unlocked.
I’ve got all of these memories of slavery. I have such vivid memories of being chased; of feeling unsafe. Sometimes I wake up inexplicably exhausted. I have memories of being betrayed by someone I trusted. I have memories of wanting to hide and to remain hidden. I can’t decide if these are messages from my ancestors, or if they’re just nightmares. It is possible, and completely reasonable that they are both.
I have all of these memories of slavery, but it wasn’t until last year, when I was away from home for a month, that I began to understand this is why I am the way that I am. Why I’m never caught in the wrong place after dark. Why I openly lie to people I don’t trust. Why I hear when engines are cut on or off. Why I don’t talk too much about my life with strangers. Why I keep a very small circle.
It took contrasting my ideas of “safety†in two different countries for me to recognize these native impulses for hyper-vigilance.
Professor Saadiya Hartman said, “I am the afterlife of slavery.†I really felt that. Especially with how I handle unannounced guests. When I am at home, (or at your house) and the doorbell rings, I will not answer the door. If I didn’t receive a text beforehand; if we ain’t been made plans; if I am not expecting anyone, the door will simply remain shut. I won’t even check to see who it is.
My mom is similar, though not as much as she used to be. My grandmother was like that, too. I have memories of her standing at a door, firmly asking, “Who Is It?!†If they didn’t answer, she would simply go on about the rest of her day. She wasn’t a fool. I’m no fool either. I shudder to imagine what experiences brought her to that way of being.
I realize now that I never needed details of the lynchings, the kidnappings, and the beatings for her vigilance to have such a profound effect on me. So many things were left unspoken.
Niggas been looking for safety since before the Zong. I can’t think of safety without thinking of the constant threat of white violence and its connected oppressions throughout my family’s history. My grandmother was no different than her grandmother. I am no different than my mother, who sought safety in any capacity she could. She moved me from Colorado to Kentucky because she feared that the surrounding whiteness would be a threat to my ontology. She removed me from the men in the family because she feared that they would become a threat to my burgeoning queerness.
I have all of these memories of slavery and all of these memories have the same underlying dynamic: the lack of safety. Our ancestor Nina Simone said that freedom for her is no fear. Freedom for all of us has been an unattainable, unending, unmitigated, unconditional safety. The pursuit of safety is what prompted the great migration. The pursuit of safety is what prompted my mother to pull me out of certain schools and out of certain neighborhoods.
I always try to drive safe. I never turn a light on while I’m in a car. I thought that shit was against the law until I was about 19. I was 24 when I found out that it’s not the light that is illegal but the Blackness it might illuminate. Niggas been the primordial criminal, and knowing that in middle school would have saved me from a lot of frustration.
I have intimate memories of white teachers telling Black me that I knew what I “did†was bad, even when I truly didn’t. I suppose if whites can inherit a reputation of truth, beauty and valor it’d be only natural that the wretched of the earth inherit a reputation of falsehoods, squalor and fear. That it runs in our blood.
These tiny cultural adjustments toward safety seem featherlike when isolated. People outside of the diaspora judgingly ask, “Why do you wash your chicken?†or, “Why do you acknowledge and make eye contact with everyone in the room when you walk in?†But this is what got us through. This what gets us through.
When I was 14, these intimate cultural signifiers felt like something to be shared with the others so that they in turn would share their strange ways with us. I bought into the cultural diversity and racial inclusivity schemes of the 90’s. I wanted to be American. I wanted to be inclusive. I wanted to be included. I wanted to be safe.
I’m not sure when my perception changed. It could have been with my realization that I will never be safe, assimilated or otherwise. It could have been when I realized that in order for me to be safe, all whiteness must be eradicated from every corner of the earth. It could have been with the murder of Trayvon Martin. It could have been when I discovered the history of the MOVE bombings at 19. I can’t place the exact moment of change, but, without a doubt, it was the barbarity of whiteness that made me know that my Black queer self will never be safe.
It is exhausting chasing safety. It is exhausting to always be this vigilant, and all too often it is still not enough. There was no amount of vigilance that could have protected Aiyana Stanley. There is no amount of vigilance that could protect Sandra Bland. There is no amount of vigilance that could have protected Korryn Gaines.
I want to teach my children to be carefree, but I don’t think I can teach them something that I have never experienced. Instead of joy, I fear that I will have to teach them how to properly lock a door. While their friends are on field trips visiting the racist forefathers and their temples, I fear that I will have to teach my child to make themselves small enough to hide should something—anything—hit the fan. I fear that instead of teaching them to be trusting and welcoming, I’ll have to teach them to be as excruciatingly vigilant as I am, as my mother is and as my grandmother was.
There is joy in relief, but they are not the same thing. I often confuse the two. There’s a clever indictment hidden within too many English words. Safety always implies that there was/is a threat. Relief implies the memory of pain. Freedom implies the memory of slavery. All of these concepts depend on their own binary to relate meaning. I’ve never been a fan of binaries, and I still ain’t.
Safety, for us, isn’t freedom, it’s often only a reprieve. One should never mistake it for freedom. Safety is only a respite, oftentimes too brief. I’ve been searching for Nina’s paradise where none of us have anything to fear. I’ve been searching for a paradise where we are all safe, just as we are, but I just keep running into precaution and postcaution. Centuries of both stretch in every direction. I want a paradise for my children. I want to break the cycle of vigilance.
But I can’t break the cycle of vigilance that my ancestors have carefully—painstakingly—coded into me. Not yet. It’s not the right time. We are still at constant war. We are in forever crisis.
There’s always self-care, but after self-care is all rationed out, what comes after? I’m not sure, but for now, the car light will remain off. All exits will be monitored closely. My door will remain locked extra tight. My pursuit of the impossible; my pursuit of safety without the memory of fear—cannot falter now. My loved ones will be held extra close. It is a heavy burden, but one I must carry.Â
Suggested Readings:
Isabel Wilkerson, , 2011
Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddamn (Live in the Netherlands)“, YouTube (posted in 2015)
Amber Butts, “What is hoarding for Black people who aren’t allowed things?“, RaceBaitr 2018
Kejhonti Neloms is a queer student/teacher. He has dreams of starting a community center for black queer kids.
