Did you know that Black folks hoard trauma? Cause we do. We’re hoarders, yall. We always take pride in having high cleaning standards – and if you are Black in America, you should know about that Saturday morning cleanup day life! But just under that ‘clean’ surface is some dirty shit. You ever seen an episode of the tv show ‘Hoarders’? That’s what we look like, except we accumulate other shit. We got secrets crawling up and down the walls, everybody actin’ like they don’t see that shit; lies scattered all over the gatdamn floor, can’t even see the floor the know what color the carpet used to be; half-truths stankin’ and rotting in the refrigerator because you swear it's still good enough for people to consume; abuse overflowing out the toilet, in buckets, smeared on the bathroom walls, cloggin the sing up; and all types of dysfunction stacked all the way to the ceiling, you gotta climb that shit just to get to the stairs! It's a MESS! Now, before we get too deep in the family fun box of melancholy, if you're one of the special people that read this and feel the urge to say 'Well, not my family', good for you, hon. Here's a big cookie. Now go sit in the corner and stfu while the rest of us are actively healing because that talk doesn't help anyone but your insecure lil funky ego. Keep it to yourself and K.I.M. Niggas like that are probably the reason some of us are in therapy now, shit.
For the rest of us healing, I gotta ask, why do we do it to ourselves, to each other? Holding on to all that...garbage? What are we doing with it other than having our ancestors stockpile stress and distress like a damn U-Haul storage unit in eternity? Seriously, that’s what we do; hold all our shit like containers in storage. And it's just ancestor after ancestor going back and forth, back and forth, moving shit around. Instead of emptying them while they were alive. All those boxes are filled to the brim with raggedy, trifflin, family secret fuck shit. Never dealt with, never ‘opened’. Just moved by an ancestor from one place on the shelf to the another. It's time to lighten their burden so their souls and the souls of future ancestors can rest properly. They deserve that. They deserve peace. We deserve peace. We deserve better than our souls doomed to going to that damn storage unit of fuckery, lifting boxes no one will get rid of. But in order to get said peace though, we need to clear that bitch out because the cost of maintaining it is too fucking high.
You know what else is in there? YOUR raggedy, triflin, personal secret fuck shit! Don’t ever think you can heal by unboxing your elder’s shadows without unboxing your own. You gain greater wisdom and can heal/bond with our elders with some understanding, which will bring about forgiveness. Now remember, forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is not tolerating their presence when their presence is harmful to you. Protect your peace, and forgive, love and pray for them from a distance. Unfortunately, y’all, there are some family and friends that just don’t want to heal. In their mind, they don’t need to heal. They carry behaviors stemming from various experiences and don’t even realize they are connected. Not everyone is equipped to dig deep and face themselves, their past, their lives. Don’t want to come to terms with feelings of regret, heartbreak, dealing with loss – they aren’t ready to change. They are afraid of change. They’re afraid to deal with themselves. And you can’t make them, you can’t eat pray love a person into personal investigation and discovery. Everyone has their own timeline. In the meantime, practice patience, practice kindness, protect the vulnerable, find strength in our own vulnerability, and understand that vulnerability is not a weakness. Real niggas know it's okay to cry.
I need every Black person who is reading this to repeat after me: IGNORING THE PROBLEM WILL NOT MAKE IT GO AWAY. YOU CANNOT PRAY AWAY LIES, SECRETS OR ABUSE. I want us to say this to ourselves once a day. At least. Because trauma hoarding is something we can no longer tolerate. We cannot accept avoidance, that’s how white folks deal with racism – how’s that workin out? Exactly. We are not white people. We can’t afford to ignore or avoid our community issues. We have to be as bold and strong as we claim to be when it comes to our personal and family problems. We’ll fight a stranger in the street to protect a vulnerable person but won’t say shit to the predator in the family to protect the vulnerable in your own damn house. You will never be able to talk any type of ‘I would’ve’ NOTHIN if you haven’t confronted the abuser/predator(s) in your own damn family. Cause we tend to bitch up when it comes to holding a villain accountable if he/she can make us laugh or have some money, or whatever reason/excuse we come up with to excuse their bullshit. C’mon now, Black people- stand up….STAND UP! We can and MUST do better. We can do better than choosing to wallow and drown any hope for our community under a pile of emotional rubble we are too afraid to clean. So, what are you gonna do? As James Colwell says: ‘You gotta cleeeaan it up!’
Let’s get to cleanin!