On Black fatigue
Illustrated by Iris Busjahn.
In the years I’ve been writing this column I don’t think I’ve ever written my original idea. This piece is no different. My plan was to write about my first time judging at the American Cheese Society’s Judging & Competition in Minneapolis. I wanted to tell you all about how a friend sent me Burrino Pepato from Murray’s: Scamorza from Maplebrook Farm is wrapped around a cultured butter center from Ploughgate, then coated in peppercorns and aged in Murray’s award-winning caves. I tried, I really did. I just couldn’t do it this time. I’m exhausted. I went out to do some errands yesterday, came home, unpacked everything, and then had to lie down on the bed. I felt like my bones had been replaced by lead pipes. How could I be so exhausted after doing so very little?
I am so tired of waiting.
Aren’t you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two –
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
—Langston Hughes
I first heard about Black Fatigue in the fall of 2020. Author Mary Frances Winters published a book called Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit. Up until then, I didn’t have a name for how it felt to always be on guard. Fight or flight was ingrained in me since I was a child. My mom, and Nana (AKA Nans, AKA Grandma, AKA Mildred) were both in the fight category.
My mother did not apologize. She wore her Blackness, her womanhood, her intelligence, and her strength like badges of honor and never backed down. Nana was the same, but more quiet. My mother shouted her opinions. She didn’t just burn the bridges of her enemies, she salted the earth where they lived. Nans used her words to strategically slice and dice. A few months after she died a friend and I were going through some of her correspondence and found a letter she’d written to the principal of a school where she taught. My friend looked at me and said “Oh she was a badass wasn’t she?” She was. They both were.
Living and working in predominantly … homogenized areas had me using flight more often than I should have. Calling out microaggressions, macroaggressions, and racism is exhausting. Most of the time I’ve spoken up I was dismissed. Eventually, I found my own strength and decided to no longer shrink myself to fit into what others wanted me to be. I chose fight. As I’ve been told many times, I’m very articulate. Yes, that “compliment” is still being bestowed upon Black folks in the 2020s. So, I’ve grown to fight with my words. While my intention rarely includes burning bridges, what I’ve written and what I’ve said has fanned some embers into flames. I lament the loss of those connections while also using the flames to make s’mores. I love being a multitasking queen.
Speaking up is risky and hard, but being silent feels harder. So I’ve been speaking out.
Not just here, but in my real life as well. At work, in the grocery store, on the street. Being a Black woman in this country can be exhausting. Add in additional intersections like queerness and disability and it feels like everything is a fight. I always have to be ready to make the determination to fight or keep quiet. I just want to be, but that’s not an option.
Recently, I heard a new bastardization of the phrase “Black fatigue.” People weren’t talking about the mental, emotional, and physical toll that racism inflicts on Black bodies, they were talking about how they were sick of hearing about the struggles Black people endure. They were sick and tired of all the “ghetto” attitudes. Our existence is fatiguing to some people.
While DEI is still used as a replacement for what they really want to say, the co-opting of Black Fatigue is gaining in popularity, and gets them a little bit closer to their soon to be unfiltered truth.
Black Fatigue is now being used as a weapon against Black people, and is just one of the challenges marginalized and oppressed people are facing in this country right now. I’m mentioning this now because it’s happening to me, and maybe writing it down will help me to stop internalizing it. Maybe writing it down will help someone else who has been trying to name one of the many things that they’re going through.
The only way is forward. No matter what they throw at us. No matter how tired we are. The worms are exposed and instead of waiting for the world to be kind, we are tasked with bringing the kindness and beauty that we deserve into this world. Be gentle with yourselves and with others. We will get through this. Rest when you can, fight when you must.
Agela Abdullah
Agela Abdullah is a “reformed” cook and chef who took her first job behind the cheese counter in 2008. She currently handles marketing for an Illinois cheesemaker and serves as a board member for the Cheese Culture Coalition. She lives in Chicago with two cats, two sourdough starters, and an old laptop named Harbison.
