In Praise of Black Weariness

I think of Black weariness as a specific condition born from the Middle Passage and ongoing genocide, a continual state of being that is distinct from resolvable feelings like "sleepiness." Black weariness is both intentional and environmental, a technology of survival in a world which has never left us any other choice. It is found in the procedural, grief-laden repetition of M. NourbeSe Philip's "Zong! #14" ("the truth was/the ship sailed/the rains came/the loss arose") and the directness of jay dodd’s "In the Age of Audacity" ("i don’t want a Solution/i want People to know/Everything hurts"). It's the flippant, sacred feeling writer Morgan Parker gestures towards in "Magical Negro #217: Diana Ross Finishing a Rib in Alabama, 1990s" (“Since I thought I'd be dead/by now everything/I do is fucking perfect"). Black weariness is the creation of luxury and time under impossible conditions. It's a balm, a speculative tradition, a freedom practice