Observations and Considerations for the Use of Apathy

the thoughts are mine, and mine alone.

ap·a·thy /ˈapəTHē/

noun

1. lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern

It is an odd thing to observe the outrage of White femmes. Specifically, the outrage and tears of present-day,White, Liberal women.

The overturning of Roe v Wade by a White, Christian Nationalist-dominated Supreme Court was not a surprise….Well to me, anyway. When one ensures that they are educated on legislative submissions/challenges/processes, these things do not create storms of rage.

It is ever-present that this was the culmination of internalized, covert and strategic hatred for the femme body. For the Othered body. For the BLACK BODY.

Where was that rage when learning of your great-great-great-grandparents’ hatred when my ancestors were their enslaved?

Where was that rage when learning of your great-great-grandparents’ convictions when my great-great-grandparents were casualties of a war against the Black Body in the form of policy, indentured servitude, continued violence?

Where was that rage when learning your great-grandparents were hunting bodies as my great-grandparents were beaten, hosed, bombed, dragged in the streets for just existing?

Where was that rage when learning your grandparents’ vote to keep my grandparents systematically incarcerated, redlined, disenfranchised from employment, education, healthcare and upward mobility?

Where was that rage when learning your parents’ complicity in the lynching and murder of our bodies made public by technology?

nowhere to be found.

Rage was only found when you felt your individual existence is in jeopardy.

Where will your rage be when you realize that the foster care system of your great-grandparents fails children, and those that lose them?

Where will your rage be when you realize the healthcare system of your grandparents contines to enable the existence of African-American Maternal Mortality and Morbidity?

Where will your rage be when you realize the political system your parents cling to, is the the same one that killed mine?

Where will your rage be when you realize you have been complicit in silencing the rage of the people you appropriate, use to feel better about yourself, and strategically manuever around?

the apathy of your ancestors are in your tears.

the apathy of your complicity is in your tears.

the apathy holds fast long before, during, and after your tears.

How do I know?

When you choose, how you choose, in the presence of who you choose to shed your tears……..

silence trillions of liters of blood, saline, and sweat from my people.

Your tears are so protected, you get batallions sent to ensure their existence.

Your tears are so powerful, that they cause the whole world to stop to console you.

Your tears are so polished, that they are able to mimic our rituals and religions without reverence.

Your tears are so cherished that racialized, colonized, marginalized people will harm, and have harmed each other for their favor.

We have have broken each others’ bodies and brains to hold basins in their honor.

If this brought you to tears, without an audience…..ask yourself, “For whom, and what am I crying?’

As I have no hatred for your humanity.

I have contempt for your tears, and the selection of when to be enraged.

When we cannot even have space to breathe, to be, to grieve.

When will you shut up, sit down, and actually do what you call “actively listen”?

“Active listening” in you, “Justified hypervigilance” in us.

Always, our trauma made “cute” for your processing.

Yet, your tears do not save, nor liberate Our Beloved.