The Danger of Performative Grief

Roe v Wade… it happened. It's unfathomable. It's done. As shocking as it was to so many people worldwide, there has been much to prepare us for the fact that many Americans live in a country that feels more and more foreign to them every day. The fact is some Americans and immigrants that have called the US home for as long as they can remember have always felt othered in this society. And this ruling only makes the possibility of them overcoming their daily struggles that much harder. Speaking of hard, I have heard that word a bit too frequently the last two weeks of my life journey. In my work, many women I meet find the most challenging aspect of their life confronting their perception of themself. In guidance, there isn't the protective veil of life they are used to being protected by as established by the societal norms of the global community. Many of the women I attempt to guide toward clarity can self-define themselves without any barrier of oppression. This is the privilege that their whiteness affords them. 

These are the women that are claiming to be the most heartbroken about Roe v Wade? Give me a break. And while I am away trying to cope with why we are now readily lining up to hear what these women have to say and how deeply they are grieving for others, though it won't affect them, I hope you understand the damage they are all actively creating. But, they do so with your acceptance. 

One thing I could appreciate about that teaching moment that we witnessed in our generation through George Floyd was that, for once, we had permission to tell white men and women to SHUT. UP! For a split second, black and brown people's voices became elevated and prioritized. And to be honest, these voices are the deepest because they have experienced the most horrific forms of trauma through generations at the hands, backward ideas, and performative grief of the nation's self-empowered demographic.  

The danger in buying into this performative grief at this moment in history is that it simply isn't helpful. In the same way that despite everyone running to buy all the books about racism when George Floyd was killed wasn't beneficial. Much like when white folks decided they would start referring to themselves as allies weren't helpful. I have never felt more connected to what my great-great-grandmother experienced than when some white woman feels like they have to speak for me while doing simple tasks in public. The thing about these type of white women is that they have no concept of genuine empathy. So they spend a lot of time being complicit in voting and spending the generational wealth they have been afforded, that they have elevated themselves beyond a place where they truly have to be reflective, genuinely thoughtful, or can connect with even the concept of being permanently disadvantaged.

Now, where this Roe v Wade ruling has already gone into effect and changed the trajectory of actual lives in real-time, we have press pause on dignifying this performative grief with our attention. I don't want to see another post from a white woman that starts with, "this will never directly affect me, as I have the means to travel anywhere to receive an abortion. And I am grateful for a family that would support my choices." If this is your contribution, the movement does not need you. You cannot help heal anyone because you have never been traumatized, oppressed, or backed so far into a corner by external circumstances that you can't bear to focus on anything else. 

The average working-class black or brown woman and some middle-class black people haven't even had time to process the Roe v Wade decision because they were too preoccupied with being black when it happened. In the same way, we hadn't had time to give too much energy to climate change, to find the right ways to fight for better equal healthcare and refugee rights. Some of us never got a break during COVID-19 unless we were infected, forced to quarantine, or perhaps off work to briefly pay our respects to a family member that passed away before our situation moved us to put our head down and keep working. Many black and brown women have daily fears that a white woman can never fully appreciate because it is advantageous that black people always remember to watch their mouths and actions when under the white gaze.   

Right now, we, the coloreds, only want to hear from people that have solutions. A running list of people to call if we are in a situation, a database with folks willing to house and assist with travel if we find ourselves in dire circumstances due to this ruling. We only want to hear from those who had to suffer from a botched abortion. And those who have already re-routed their plans to terminate a pregnancy as this decision has gone into effect. So if you don't have any lived experience, please defer to reparations. Reparations. Reparations. Because separating yourself from your luxury still won't make you completely disadvantaged. You still have your distinct mark of privilege that will work for you without a penny to your name. 

 The other day, I was scrolling on Linkedin, and some white woman was hosting a zoom call to scream into the void. Respectfully, as a black woman, white women are the void. They are the "good citizens" who do nothing but love to get attention for the knowledge and wisdom they have stolen from others throughout time. If you must be healed, felt, and deeply understood as someone that this decision will directly affect, let it be by someone who can make you feel as safe as I did when I first set foot in Africa years ago. Because the white tears that we are experiencing now will always be the priority in any room. White women should have to fix their faces right now, in the same ways that they expect us not to react when they are speaking to us in microaggressions, violating our bodies, stealing our children, separating our families, embodying our "ghetto" culture and calling it art, imposing soul-wrenching barriers to our well being and killing us for free. We don't want to see it. 

This is a moment to reflect and create an action plan to provide a real strategy. Our problem is we keep losing sight of the goal. We can't keep trying to go point for point with the oppressors. That's why we are still oppressed. It is a fatal mistake to give the mic to these wanna-be healers right now just because they have a platform and nothing else to do, and since we are already here, all mental health professionals are not created equal. We need people gifted, not simply learned bodies. We need divinely connected people, not any geek off the street armed with divination tools. We don't need career professionals morphing into caregivers; we need natural-born healers. 

I believe academia has a place and a role in this conversation. Still, more than anything, we need those to step forward and understand the language of Spirit. So that they might aid in rendering a spiritual remedy for the gut-wrenching anguish, we have experienced through the generations, So that we may find a pathway to clarity and a newfound strategy for our freedom.

We need those connected to authentic rituals that activate our ancestors so we might finally bridge the pain of grief with the knowledge of the unseen. 

But, if we allow performative grief to sit center stage right now, we further allow them to reshape the actual appearance of pain. We lose our sense of urgency when people are experiencing real trauma and despair from being sexually assaulted, being a victim of incest that results in pregnancy, or facing the loss of a nonviable pregnancy without the ability to remove it from your uterus legally. This is what grief and literal pain are. Not this piddly depression the oppressors claim to be feeling. It's a distraction, just like Roe v Wade is a distraction. Roe v Wade is not an end-game decision. This decision is an element of a larger plan. We spend too much time in the wrong place with our authentic issues. 

What we need more than a poor display of grief by the most privileged and still the worst actors throughout time is emotional clarity. We need to articulate in our own words why this is making us feel so worthless and why this is resurfacing bad memories from even our earliest memory of oppression. We need to find the words to hold deep awareness for our authentic grief, not the grief one could only imagine. As black and brown women strive for softer lives, we must find our way in this new layer of vulnerability. Beyond this moment of Roe v Wade, we need to use this brief moment to root in expressing our most intimate feelings about our oppressed journey without someone telling us they have heard enough. Like the moments when we get what used to be the heart-stopping ultimatum of "if you don't like it here, go back to where you came from." That threat doesn't hold power over us anymore because we have a different picture and lived experiences of home now. 

We fail ourselves every time we give a like or a follow to the performative grief and the white tears that drown out our collective soul purpose, which could only be freedom from oppression. We also have to put our thoughts into perspective. Why do you expect to have the right to choose to end a pregnancy if, as black and brown women, we don't have the right to live fully, without fear, without the feeling of lack? Abundance does not belong to white supremacy.   

And, don't let these new school lifestyle influencers make you forget that even when buying luxury, you are doing so while black or brown, and no amount of money will ever change that. Our truest generational wealth flows through our spiritual inheritance. To recover it, we must surrender to those that can rightly guide us towards the Light. In connecting to our innermost voice and fears and healing the wounds forced on us, we succeed in walking our paths in truth. Our most apparent and most permanent solution to all of our trials is inside of everything we know to be true about existence. We must have the courage and faith to live according to our circumstantial and universal truths. The help we seek will find us and see us through this moment. That doesn't prevent me from deep sadness; I empathize with those that have already lost their lives in this power struggle. And those that aren't aligned with a future they did not plan. We need to make ourselves available for their healing, and their narratives must not be ignored. 

Although we may feel disconnected from the power of choice, it feels like impending doom. This is because we only ever had two choices in this life, one of which was to follow the natural consequences of this lifetime. However the Light illuminates the path; it will not be in vain.

But as for you, Clarence...