Surviving life - as a survivor

Navigating life as a survivor of abuse is one of the hardest things any individual will have to live with. This TED talk for instance highlights how childhood trauma has knock on effects on the rest of one's life, with specific focus on the medical consequences thereof.  It also highlights how we box off abuse as a social or mental health issue where it is something that is truly all encompassing. I write from the perspective of someone who has lived through intense childhood trauma, but the same logic applies to survivors of any type of abuse - emotional, physical, sexual. 

Basically, with abuse, what happens is that a survivor is primed to exist in fight or flight mode. They are as a result of their experience, untrusting of the world and of people's motives, and this is compounded by a profound sense of internalised blame and a strong imposter syndrome. This means that they see their circumstances as if it is something they had a conscious choice in creating, and see their successes as flukes that are not attributable to their hard work.

With these as the backdrop of what it's like to live as survivor,  rising above the challenges of daily life requires so much more. For instance, daily tasks become fraught, since the base level of trust in other people that survivors have is much lower. There is an anxiety that surrounds interacting with people they do not know intimately,  in fact just meeting people on their level requires an extra degree of trust that takes a substantial amount of emotional energy to fork out. Emotional energy that survivors do not have, since positive emotional space is in short supply because of trauma.

The crux of the matter is that being a survivor never ends. In other words, no matter how you cut it, your conditioning in childhood and learnt behaviour that the world works through the absence of trust follows you throughout your life. This is not to say that you will never trust people. Instead, what it means is that to learn to trust takes longer, or can manifest by lapses in judgment. There are behavioural patterns learnt that basically keep manifesting themselves in  the life of a survivor over and over again.

The most common way that these patterns manifests can be illustrated by the trope of a woman who subconsciously chooses an abusive partner. I am not sure this is because of an inherent belief that she is unworthy of love and respect as much as it is because this is what she has been conditioned to understand love and respect to be.

Ponder on that for a second.

Can you imagine how hard it is to break the cycle of abuse when your internal reality is one in which being treated in a way that undermines your humanity is what you have been ingrained to understand as normal. This results in a threshold for triggers that is both lower and higher than that of the ordinary person. Lower in the sense that because an ordinary person would not have been exposed to abusive behaviour (especially emotional abuse) when they are confronted with it, it goes over their head and they are somewhat immune to it to a certain extent. The trigger threshold is also higher because of uncertainty surrounding when trauma is going to strike - there is a constant anxiety over being attacked and this makes interacting with ordinary people all the more harder. 

This complex existence is reality for survivors. Here are a list of spaces where they come out most strongly. In these spaces the abused person is at a disadvantage because the power structures of society do not recognise or even legitmise their internal struggle. 

1. The workplace. See this post. 
2. The most intuitive - romantic relationships, this can be long term relationships or short term flings. In the former it can be the case that the abused person settles for a narcissist or a person that either explicitly or subtly undermines them, and in the latter it is a series of associations with partners who undervalue the person and lack respect for them. 
3. Friendships - learning who to trust, and how much to open up to friends can be challenging for a survivor. You never know whether they will truly accept you once they come to learn of your history, and while you should not care, it is almost inevitable that you do. 
4. Social situations with acquaintances - social anxiety is a common response of survivors. 
5. Authority - Survivors, of abuse, and especially emotional abuse and neglect, struggle with authority since it was an abuse of power in the first place that led to them being victimised.

With almost every part of interacting in daily life jaded by the shadow that is being a survivor, the hardest part about all of this is that it is a lonely process. South Africa is a nation of serially abused people, in particular black people, women, and children. It is almost debilitating realising that after a life time of letting people treat you a certain way, that there is something not right about it, and that the power lies with you to make them stop or to walk away. How can you walk away when at the base of what you rationally know is the right way to be treated, you have a belief that abuse in its complex forms is almost normal? It's not like you are choosing it in the first place, you didn't ask for the trauma, you didn't ask to be inflicted with the harm that caused you these patterns. It then becomes even more debilitating realising that there are patterns in your life perpetuating the cycle of abuse - and at this point it turns into self-loathing. You hate yourself for allowing this but again, you don't know any different. 

All the while the rest of the world is oblivious to this. The person inflicting you with the pain is probably unaware of it too, and there is almost a guarantee that their behaviour is not going to change. Your friends and family can probably see the pattern perpetuation, and are only too quick to tell you that you need to leave or change but don't care to acknowledge that no matter if you do leave, the propensity for you to keep manifesting it in different ways will carry on throughout your life. 

This is where therapists and cognitive behavioural therapy come in. But not everyone can afford this, so what are those who are without resources supposed to do to cope? And for those who do manage to afford it, it is often the case that therapists can be harsh and "hold up the mirror" without any true understanding of how all encompassing this existence is. 

In the end the only true remedy for it is self-love and self-care, but as a survivor living with a heart that is perpetually tightened in your chest, it is impossible to know how, when or where to start with this. And the cycle turns inward. You become both the perpetrator and the victim. And this is the hardest part to live with. I wonder, how do I survive knowing that this is what I am creating for myself? Even if I see a pattern, it makes me feel helpless, resigned to a fate that will keep me in emotional turmoil? For me, as a survivor I will say that there has been no catharsis - there's been denialism and judgment by friends, spending of large amounts of money on therapy and only a slow improvement over time, but always a coming back to the same repetition over the course of a life, mired by periodic slips into depression and a hope - blind faith (ironic as an atheist) - that things will get better eventually.

Rage (Part I)

Head heavy. Cranium
full of lead. Frontal
cortex bursting
with pressure.
Rage.
Fills my body.

Rage. From the
numbness in the tips
of my fingers to
the roots of the
ache in my lower
back.  Rage. Is the
sound of the scratched
echo that plays
inside me.

Rage. At the thieves
who've stolen my
emotional land. At
those oblivious
to the difficulties
of our condition.
At those who
dare to be
their authentic
selves without
consequence.

Rage. At the
injustice of this
affliction.
Rage. At it all.

Except
there is
no rage
towards
my melanin.

The Rose Garden

I stood naked on the 

ground, feet sinking into

the sponge of the dewy

grass. He met me there

and sprinkled the seeds

around me, in a loose circle.

We agreed to water it

together

The sun set on that 

summer and the roots

that sprouted began to 

spread. with each sun

set and rise millimeters

of green veins were

added. We learned that 

for the roses to flourish 

they would need support

so we added a metallic 

arch over my head - naked 

body still enduring seasonal

shifts

With autumn came the first

buds, the bloom glorious.

Tiny blushing drops eventually 

spread open, filling my nostrils with 

the scent of molasses. My thighs 

and hips were covered in dustings 

of nectar as he pruned, watered

and tended to the new born

sprouts

It continued this way - and 

by the seventh cycle the archway

was laden with the weight of 

roses so dense that a single

flower

would weigh down 

the cup of your palm

As the garden flourished, I kept

looking up in awe of the beauty 

that we nurtured, only rarely ever

taking note of the large and heavy vines

that entwined around my waist 

and breasts, coiled around my feet -

cramping  my calves and aching my

back

It was a byproduct of the beauty, 

a cost at which the garden came. 

In the winter I even took solace in

the tight green shelter - it offered

welcome protection from the frosty cold. 

I was safe.

But all this time, I failed to see that

as the roses grew so too did the jagged,

thick and sturdy thorns. Blinded by the

velvet plush petals, it took me by surprise

how the thorns stealthily grew so large

that they barely noticeably pierced their way 

through my rib cage, puncturing my lungs.

Making it

              impossible 

                               for me 

                                          to breathe.

Emmanuel

He stood
beneath the street lamp
in broad day light
jeans, if you could call them that
aged from all wear and no wash, day
after day, to the point where
the jeans - which were
once blue - were as gray as
the dreads atop his head as
the trainers which bled
crusted feet from the sides, as
the oversized utility jersey
he wore.

He talked
in tongues. Sporadic teeth brittle
and gray too -a mad man  -
except he was not mad.
Everyone else was. Everyone
had driven him to this, the
white Range Rover revved passed
and the ghost inside it didn't half
look up to notice either the street
lamp or the thing
beside it.

Thing.
A man with a face, a
soul, a name - once a child
with love and a tinge of
mischief in his heart.
The ghosts took
it out of him. Killed him
slowly, without the reprieve of
death. Stole his dreams so that
the only dream he had was the
nightmare of living
once he came down from
three days ago's tik.

He may have had a child
or three - two girls and
a boy, but the mother
took them back to the Eastern
Cape where they could have had
a better life - less corrupt she said,  less
of the evil Sattan of this city.
(One wondered if she was referring
to the ghosts, who trolled the
streets opulently - probably not. No-one
saw these ghosts as satanic. Not even
he. He never questioned their existence.)
He listlessly conceded to her choice
one Sunday afternoon, half mumbling
half shouting at her while
foaming at the mouth - knowing he
was unable to stop them from leaving.

He continued his monologue -
no-one listened. Not even the street
lamp, or the gray walls surrounding
the newly laid tennis courts or
the street.

I watched for fifteen minutes, then left.

Cape Town Haiku

The mountain is cursed -
here poor black bodies lie strewn
while rich whites chink glass.

Heartbreak (Part I)

I wrote a little piece of prose on this the other day. At that time I thought the worst of it would be the gut wrenching feeling on the inside that something has been unfairly taken away from you. That you would just suffer with pangs of intense pain every now and then, and you would be more or less functional, and it would proceed like this for a few months until you calibrate to normal, slowly.

I was wrong.

Yesterday afternoon a wave of emotional exhaustion, so large that it drowned me, hit me. It's frustrating. I wish I could say I knew why it was so intense. I wish I understood the psyche more. It makes no sense in my rational mind that the removal of one person from my life could have such dire consequences. Especially because I am happy with the decision, especially because I was finding it hard to breathe in the relationship and this ending should be like a coming up for air. Nope. It's not.

Today, I literally can't move. Every part of my body feels like lead. I can't think. Haven't been able to for weeks now, since it happened. It's guilt inducing skipping work, but even basic tasks like making food or a cup of tea have become impossible. Today holding up a book is too heavy. Literally. I can't carry the book, and thank God for my computer, because all I need to do to use it is move my fingers to get it to work, which is about as much as I can do without collapsing. Not that there is anything to do on it. Social media sucks the life out of me. All I can ingest right now is poetry.

Everyone else looking in seems to realise that this is normal. It certainly doesn't fucking feel like it. It feels lonely and isolating. It feels like an extended purgatory. I can't watch stuff to distract because it is all too mind numbing, and there is inevitably some kind of romantic undercurrent. I am selective about music too. Fuck all these indie artists with their hopeful lyrics, and fuck Sufjan Stevens for romanticising heartbreak. No Sufjan, it doesn't work like thank. Praise the lord for Kendrick on Fear pleading with God to let him know why he has to suffer, then for the line that is the closest thing to any kind of  sad redemption one can expect in this shit show: "If I could smoke fear away, I'd roll that mothafucka up." Hallelujah bitch, I'll be rolling up as soon as I can.

This is heartbreak. It is debilitating and alienating, for no other reason than it is a lone road to travel. And it fucking sucks.

Thighs

They spread theirs
    like scissors
in every photograph
    and pose
not once
does does it cross
their minds
that the stick like stalks
holding up their
narrow
hips
have
so much
power.

Scrolling - it is the first thing
we notice
and our
hearts break into
a hollow song
we pine,
yearn,
cry
for ourselves
to occupy
so little room
but have
such immense
reach.

They
then
have the
sheer audacity
to shake
what they
don't have.
To try and
scintillate
the way
we
do.

At the end
we
are
left
empty.

Love and Whiteness (Part III)

When the choice
  to live
  - in this world -
  becomes
     an ultimatum
 between
    love
    and
    dignity

It takes
 only
\ a split second \
to realise
that
   love
is but
   a luxury.

Loops

Like a record on repeat
  life presents the same
  challenges
  time and
  time again
  except that each time
  it is never the same

You wonder, is it
  the record
  that has changed
  or am I different for
  listening to it?

Love and Whiteness (Part II)

So the last time I wrote a post on this subject it was more directly lamenting the difficulties of loving a white person and the ways in which they fail to see you on a one-on-one level.

But as we get deeper into our relationship big things keep coming up. And this is why it has taken me so long to get around to writing part two of that post. Put simply, loving a white partner is not simply about the one on one relationship the two of you have. It is about much much more than that. See, there are the interpersonal dynamics between the two of you, then there are the larger societal power dynamics.

Basically, what I have been coming to realise over the increasing course of my relationship is that deciding to build something with a white person is complex, because the advantages they have of being in the world slowly crowd out the little space you have.

As a pansexual person in a heterosexual presenting relationship, this is because of the role patriarchy plays - a woman slowly is expected to conform to the culture of her partner, and her partner's family. That is, assimilation. But this is compounded because of the settler-colonist culture in South Africa, whiteness is seen as the highest bar of existence for all, and so with whiteness comes a sense of supremacy and entitlement, and if you don't fit the bar, you guessed it, you are less than worthy of being a part of the family.

There are a number of challenges that come up when I think about the costs that being in a relationship with a white cis-het male have had on my psyche. And to speak frankly I am tired. In fact all the women in me are tired. But because it is a release, and because it may help someone else out there I am going to dish them up right now. So sit back, and enjoy (if possible).

1 - Privilege and the associated lack of lived experience. This is perhaps the biggest stumbling block in our relationship. If you are a black woman (or person) dating a white male, there probably is a phase where it is all hunky dory. But sooner or later, one day you wake up and have the earth-shattering realisation that:

"There is no way in which my cis-het, upper class, able-bodied, christian, male partner, has ever been systemically discriminated against in his entire life."

And this shakes you up because all you've ever known was struggle. As a woman, as a person of colour, as a non-hetero person, as a poor person, for me - as a survivor. And for a second you can't reconcile how it is that the two of you are together. For a split second you feel lucky, like maybe you won the lottery. You remember how hard it used to be when you were young, how you struggled through abuse, through trauma, through the vicarious trauma of those in your community, and you think "Ah, how did I get here? That all feels like a long and distant dream." Then you wake the fuck up and realise that you are not lucky. That the boundaries of the prison have just changed, and now while you are able to live and love and exist a lot easier than you were able to before there are constraints facing you that you would never imagine existed and these come in the shape of your partner's privilege. 

Obviously different people are woke to different levels, but white partners in particular tend to suffer from the white liberal affliction. They think that because you agree on the basis of morality and ethics there is no need to do extra work to be a good ally. In fact they may not even know what allyship means. And the burden of educating them is then defaulted onto YOU, the partner. 

Because they are an entitled white male, they get offended when you say that it is not your duty to educate them. They don't understand that you don't owe it to them. If you choose to educate them it is because you love them and you have committed  to your relationship. Educating them is a god damn privilege, not your job.  

In any case, privilege fucks with the power dynamics, and unless your partner is willing to put in the active conscious work, reading, listening to podcasts, watching stuff, reading and reading, he is not going to wake up. Not now. Not ever. 

2- Compounded with class and privilege comes family. In the case of my partner, he is half foreign, and half South African. And I always find that the half foreign aspect is what has saved him. Of the micro-aggressions that I experience at the hands of his family, those from his dad - a white South African apartheid era male - are the worst. To him I am not an individual, I am other. Whenever he talks about black people or indians, or black colleagues, he makes eye contact with me. Needless to say he thinks I am the fucking spokesperson for every Indian person in South Africa. 

And while the microaggressions from him are regular and particularly bad, it is not much better from the rest of the family. While the mum is less problematic she is not unproblematic, and the sisters are so couched in their own privilege that it suffocates me. This is the thing, when you relate to them (the whole family) it is on their terms. You do what they want and expect you to do and you do it in their way. They speak upper-crust english, and because I speak my vernacular I become a fucking cute little joke to them, "Oh, Anne*, did you hear how she said that?". Ha. ha. ha. Big fucking deal. I am sorry I am not a colonist settler who stole land, preserved imperial culture and went to the most expensive private school owned to man. 

So, yeah, white families. And guess what, you tell your partner about it and they accuse you of hating their family? It has actively started causing me anxiety. I can't go there and not get a tummy ache or headache, and a sinking feeling (Queue get out) in my stomach. Worst part is - they don't know it. My partner thinks he is between a rock and a hard place, and to date has only had a discussion with them about how problematic they are on one occasion.  And in this process I am villainised. It becomes me against the family. Well it wouldn't be if they weren't such passively racist human beings. 

3- Friends. I'll keep it short. This post is becoming taxing. The microaggressions are terrible. One of the friends also did the thing all white people do by referring to me as curry! Racist pig. There was no backlash from my partner who then went on the defensive and like a week later forgot it happened. Well, I didn't forget. Then, there are the extremely racist and misogynist friends. He has a friend who had a road rage incident and drove past the woman, rolled down his window and flashed a wad of cash in her face. Then bragged to me and my partner about it, and proceeded to say that he 

was sure that she wanted to fuck him. My partner sees this as a once off isolated incident, and his family says boys will be boys. My partner also thinks he is between a rock and a hard place. 

Don't they understand that these are our fucking lives - oh wait, they don't!

2 - Society. South Africa, and particularly Cape Town is the most racially segregated racist place in the country. It is worse because white liberals who live here go to church and think they are doing their duty unto society. They live in big houses on the foot of the mountain and donate blankets and money to charity but have never paid retribution and will not give back the land. They see no link between the exploitation of black bodies under apartheid and their economic success. And because they are colonist-settlers, they think they belong here and also behave as Gods. They don't make eye contact with you if you are not white, and do not acknowledge your humanity. When they do it is in a patronising way. They don't see black people as people, forget as their inferiors. They are entitled trash. Period. Now think about having kids, black kids, and this is what they aspire to. Nope.

3 - The lack of a reprieve. So, I go to work. It is extremely white, I go to therapy, she is white, I go home my partner is white. My family is scattered. I am alone in this city. My black friends have moved on from this mini-apartheid state to places that will feed their souls. My white friends mostly have the liberalism affliction, and I am isolated. There are very few public spaces that have black bodies in them, and it becomes suffocating.

Loving a white person, then, is not about loving that individual. It is about being able to live with the toll that that love takes on your psyche and the price you pay for it. But I've basically decided that I am no longer willing to pay this price for our love. I demand respect from his parents, I will not associate with his friends, and he has to graft for it. I mean I could keep writing about this, the anger, the erasure, but I'll stop here.

I love my partner. I really do. When it is just the two of us hanging, I see his soul and I truly feel that he sees mine, and I don't wanna end what we've been building. I dig it. I dig him. I dig our life. But add to the equation the expectation of settling down (I don't want to) and where (Cape Town? City of spatial apartheid?), monogamy (contentious one)  and kids (I am strictly adopting when I decide I am ready - too many abandoned lil puudin' faces ouchea), it quickly becomes a lot. Look, I don't have the answers. Being in a relationship with a non-white male could easily have just as many challenges, there is always patriarchy and religion. In any case, we're investing in something here and I will try to make it work, but the bottom line is this guy is going to have to put in some serious work.

I guess if I could speak frankly to him I would say:

I know you've never had to work for anything in your life. I know you are hyper-intelligent, so why don't you put some of that intellect to work and research concepts such as wokeness, allyship, feminism, intersectionality?  Oh it bores you? Well listen up... this is the lifeline of our relationship, and it is ALL up to you at this stage. You think that what I have displayed up to now is rage? You have no idea of the leaps and bounds by which it will expand if you don't do something about it.

Gone, are the tears and the fear. This is a fight for survival, and you are either going to step up to the challenge or not.

I can't "Get Out" - This is my life.

Spoiler alert - come back after you've seen it.

So I saw get out this weekend and not only am I shook as fuck, it is hands down the best horror movie EVER - I mean within the first ten minutes the soundtrack featured Childish Gambino's Redbone. I mean COME ON. Yasssss.

More seriously, however, the reason it's so good is because of how real it is. I am no expert on film or the arts but as a PoC I can tell you that this movie is the track and redemption song to every PoC's life. And these are the reasons why:

The Micro Aggressions are so real. Such an integral part of the existence of being black is the emotional toll that microaggressions take on us. Microaggressions are ways in which people are racist but they are unaware of this racism, and it is this unawareness that makes it so difficult to bear. Microaggressions strike at any time and always tend to catch you with your defenses down making them all the more impactful at chipping away your humanity. Then, if you confront the perpetrator they can't see anything wrong with what they've said since they're ignorant, and you are erased further in your identity as a POC. Get Out portrays these so well, and in a way that we know resonates with all of us.  The main microaggressions that validated our trauma in get out are as follow (to be fair I'm working from memory because I don't want to read other critiques and be biased in what I write so this is list is by no means comprehensive):

• When Rose's brother talks about how Chris could have been good at UFC because he's black, then goes on to say that jujitsu is a different game, because it uses strategy implying (1) that because Chris is black he is going to be a good fighter, (2) that Chris is dumb and only defined by brawn, (3) making the link that black men are intrinsically violent. NO. NO. NO. Can not. 

No. No. No. 

No more microaggressions says Georgina.

• Related to that point was the consistent reference to black genetics as being superior for manual labour - linking back to the objectification of black bodies from the time of slavery. DISGUSTING. 
• The overt sexualisation of Chris at the lunch party, and the implication that he may have a big dick but also the crude assumption that he will be into getting into a threeway with a horribly unattractive couple. This eroticisation and  fetishisation of black people is neverending. I mean come on. The movie couldn't have made it more explicit. We don't want to be your sex slaves, BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOT FUCKING NYMPHOMANIACS. 
• We have all experienced this one to some extent: The comments on Chris's skin colour being a result of the turning of the tables of power dynamics changing. No white people, white skin was in power and will always be that way. Stop saying black is in fashion and in vogue, or that everyone will be beige one day. Stop denying how you fucked us up based on the colour of our skin.   
• Wah, wah, wah. No microaggression is clearer than the policeman asking for Chris's ID on the way out of town, then being challenged by a basic white woman who commands respect just by the colour of her skin. 
• The continual mentioning of Obama as if support for Obama automatically implies you could never be racist.
• The unsolicited defensiveness the dad makes about having black people on the grounds and the way he feels the need to be a white saviour for giving the housekeeper and groundskeeper jobs, like he is a benevolent god. 
• Tiger woods! Why you mentioning him yo? All black people don't know each other and don't care what you think of the one black person you know who is your only reference point to blackness.
• The judgment of Chris's smoking habit, I don't know if this is reaching but it felt like they were implying he has control issues and is less of a person for that dependency.
• The Gaslighting!! Rose unconsciously gaslights Chris by denying that any of these microaggressions are real and he is made to feel he is going crazy!

The Not-so-micro Aggressions: This was deep. The  extent of  the overt racism in this film was unreal.

• There was the scene where the mum sends Chris into a state of altered consciousness without his permission. Can you tell me about something more violent, entitled than this? Chris then sinks into a deep state of helplessness

This is a metaphor for what it is like to be a person of colour living in a white society. You feel helpless, like you're sinking. You're not heard, you're not seen, you're not given the space to exist. You are floating in some kind of limbo, a fresh hell.

• Then there was the scene where there are a whole lot of white people and one japanese guy, and the japanese guy, who you think would know better being of a persecuted minority groups asks chris to answer a heavily loaded question on the plight of black people in America? Like as POC tell me you have not been here? I was at a lunch date at a table of black girls a  couple of weekends ago when a white women steps up, doesn't greet and says "What do you all think is going to happen to the future of this country?" We were stunned into silence. One friend literally burst out laughing. Moral of the story - hold up and check yourself,  I am not the representative of all black people, the president of the association of blacks. Fuck sakes. Also, and importantly other non black POC can enforce microaggressions too.  
• The part where the mother asks Chris where he was when his mother died!!! I was not ready. This bitch is implying that he may have had something to do with it, you know black kid and all. This isn't a microaggression to me. Its EXTREME racism. And what will a white person say to this, "you don't know that that's what the mother meant?". Well this is my lived experience and I think I know when I am being profiled. Thanks.

Other reasons that this movie is a stellar representation of the lived experiences of POC are:

• The accuracy of the depiction of the  characters. Can we just talk about how realistic this all is? The dad is the classic intellectual white liberal who uses intellect to be "above" racism. The mom, who is passively aggressively racist and tries to protect her daughter from the black man. The brother who wants to assert to Chris, that he is superior, physically, mentally and intellectually - who wants to show Chris that he (the brother) will come out on top no matter what. 
• The perfect depiction of the way in which white families treat black significant others! The constant undermining and double checking, and the piqued interest, trying hard to box you, and the innumerous and unpredictable microaggressions. The family members who won't stop pushing buttons no matter how much your partner asks them not to. 
• The way in which whiteness is depicted in general. Especially with respect to Rose, the girlfriend  - at the beginning of the movie you are convinced that she is woke, and then just when you think you have a bond that transcends race, boom - race strikes. You can never transcend race in an interracial relationship. 
• At the lunch party there is this way in which the numerous white people all merge into one. This actually happens when you are the token person of colour in an environment. The constant microaggressions and violence become too much to handle and you eventually can't distinguish between who said something worse and what's okay and what isn't.
• Another thing I noticed, before the big plot twist at the end, was the way in which all of the grounds staff and domestic help was expected to assimilate to whiteness and not ruffle feathers. In so doing they lose track of who they are and become complicit in their own oppression. 
• Linked to this, is the way black people have to constantly fucking play up to whiteness. You don't have the choice not to and it becomes exhausting.

God damn, I could write a thesis about the universal black truth about this movie.

It is a masterpiece. It is a validation of the literal horror of black existence, black beauty and black creativity like no other. What an excellent year for black cinema!

The social commentary is excellent too, for instance the way in which the role of police is seen. At the end as the viewer, you resign yourself to the fact that this black man is FUCKED when you see that cop car roll up! This is huge. If you are white, what you should be asking is, why am I scared for this innocent black man's safety when I see this cop car?

Other poignant themes, that were revealed later were the way white people prey on black people for their own benefit. This you see most clearly when Rose's modus operandi is revealed but also at the end when the grand plan of the family is uncovered.  We are consumable to them.

Speaking on the uncovering of the grand plan, there comes a point where Chris asks "Why us?", as in, why black people? The man answering says "it's not about race, it is because black is in fashion" but when in actuality we know :

That IT IS about race.

It's about BLACK LIVES DO NOT MATTER!!!!!!!!!!!

But you get to the end of the movie, and have the satisfaction of Chris killing every one of these mother fucker's off and then being saved by his homeboy. And this is our redemption. We are like "Yeah, Chris you made it!!" We were literally applauding in the cinema. 

No Chris, you're not good honey.

Not after that.

But then you realise that Chris is shook. Fucking traumatised. He's disturbed. And we are happy because there was a victory, he wasn't arrested, he SURVIVED. But survival is the bare minimum. He now has to live with the trauma of his experience forever more. 

And so, no. There is no escape. He can't "GET OUT"

We can't GET OUT.

This is our lives.

Imagine the Angels of Bread

This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roof deck
or levitating hands in praise
of steam in the shower;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year that dark skinned men
lynched a century ago
return to sip coffee quietly
with the apologizing descendants
of their executioners.


This is the year that those

who swim the border's undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
pulling tomatoes from the vine
uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts
the vine,
the hands canning tomatoes
are named in the will
that owns the bedlam of the cannery;
this is the year that the eyes stinging from the poison that purifies toilets
awaken at last to the sight
of a rooster-loud hillside,
pilgrimage of immigrant birth; this is the year that cockroaches
become extinct, that no doctor
finds a roach embedded
in the ear of an infant;
this is the year that the food stamps
of adolescent mothers
are auctioned like gold doubloons,
and no coin is given to buy machetes
for the next bouquet of severed heads
in coffee plantation country.

If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorum,
then this is the year;
if every rebellion begins with the idea
that conquerors on horseback are not many-legged gods, that they too drown
if plunged in the river,
then this is the year.

So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.

— Martín Espada

A Small Needful Fact

Is that Eric Garner worked

for some time for the Parks and Rec.

Horticultural Department, which means,

perhaps, that with his very large hands,

perhaps, in all likelihood,

he put gently into the earth

some plants which, most likely,

some of them, in all likelihood,

continue to grow, continue

to do what such plants do, like house

and feed small and necessary creatures,

like being pleasant to touch and smell,

like converting sunlight

into food, like making it easier

for us to breathe.

--Ross Gay

Beverly Hills, Chicago

The dry brown coughing beneath their feet,
(Only a while, for the handyman is on his way)
These people walk their golden gardens.
We say ourselves fortunate to be driving by today.

That we may look at them, in their gardens where
The summer ripeness rots. But not raggedly.
Even the leaves fall down in lovelier patterns here.
And the refuse, the refuse is a neat brilliancy.

When they flow sweetly into their houses
With softness and slowness touched by that everlasting gold,
We know what they go to. To tea. But that does not mean
They will throw some little black dots into some water and add sugar and the juice of the
     cheapest lemons that are sold,

While downstairs that woman's vague phonograph bleats, "Knock me a kiss."
And the living all to be made again in the sweatingest physical manner
Tomorrow....Not that anybody is saying that these people have no trouble.
Merely that it is trouble with a gold-flecked beautiful banner.

Nobody is saying that these people do not ultimately cease to be. And
Sometimes their passings are even more painful than ours.
It is just that so often they live till their hair is white.
They make excellent corpses, among the expensive flowers....

Nobody is furious. Nobody hates these people.
At least, nobody driving by in this car.
It is only natural, however, that it should occur to us
How much more fortunate they are than we are.

It is only natural that we should look and look
At their wood and brick and stone
And think, while a breath of pine blows,
How different these are from our own.

We do not want them to have less.
But it is only natural that we should think we have not enough.
We drive on, we drive on.
When we speak to each other our voices are a little gruff.

-- Gwendolyn Brooks

Feet

Friends, mine are ugly feet:
the body’s common wreckage
stuffed into boots.  The second toe
on the left foot’s crooked
enough that when a child
asks, “what’s that?” of it,
(the left more haywire than the right)
I can without flinch or fear of doubt lie
that a cow stepped on it
which maybe makes them fear cows
for which I repent in love
as I am with those philosophical beasts
who would never smash my feet
nor sneer at them
the way my mother does:
“We always bought you good shoes, honey,”
she says, “You can’t blame us
for those things,” and for this
and other reasons
I have never indulged in the pleasure
of flip-flops shy or ashamed
digging my toes like ten tiny ostriches into the sand
at the beach with friends
who I’m not sure love me
though I don’t think Tina loved me—
she liked me, I think—but said
to me, as we sat on lawn chairs
beside a pool where I lifeguarded and was meticulous
at obscuring from view with a book or towel
my screwy friends,
You have pretty feet,
in that gaudy, cement–mixer, Levittown accent
that sends all the lemurs scaling my ribcage to see
and she actually had pretty feet
and so I took this as a kindness incomparable and probably
fell a little bit in love with her for that afternoon
with the weird white streak in her hair
and her machinegun chatter and probably her gum snapping
and so slid my feet from beneath my Powerman and Iron Fist comic book
into the sun for which they acted like plants opening their tiny mouths
to the food hurtling to them through the solar system
and like plants you could watch them almost smile,
almost say thank you, you could watch them
turn colors, and be, almost, emboldened,
as much as some snaggletoothed feet can be emboldened,
and Tina witnessed none of this
because she was probably digging in her purse
or talking about that hottie on The Real World
or yelling at some friend’s little sister to put her ass in her trunks
or pouring the crumbs of her Fritos into her thrown open mouth,
but do you really think I’m talking to you about my fucking feet?
Of course she’s dead: Tina was her name, of leukemia: so I heard—
why else would I try sadly to make music of her unremarkable kindness?
I am trying, I think, to forgive myself
for something I don’t know what.
But what I do know is that I love the moment when the poet says
I am trying to do this
or I am trying to do that.
Sometimes it’s a horseshit trick. But sometimes
it’s a way by which the poet says
I wish I could tell you,
truly, of the little factory
in my head: the smokestacks
chuffing, the dandelions
and purslane and willows of sweet clover
prying through the blacktop.
I wish I could tell you
how inside is the steady mumble and clank of machines.
But mostly I wish I could tell you of the footsteps I hear,
more than I can ever count,
all of whose gaits I can discern by listening, closely.
Which promptly disappear
after being lodged again,
here, where we started, in the factory
where loss makes all things
beautiful grow.
-- Ross Gay

Rhonda, age 15 emergency room

...Yeah, I been to juvee, what about it?
I was up at Spofford --they got legends
bout me--thought they wasn't gon git
rid a' me, but yo' I had to git de fuck up
outta dere, they had hoes that murder
people in that piece
and
I'm baaad and all but I ain't never
murdered nobody yet and I try not
to fuck up nobody too much less
they mama cain't recognize 'em

Last night, my man Ray-Ray, he 23
and built better than buster douglass
well anyway, we was over to his
crib and he was tryin to git on
for some
but he been locked up for 4 months
and I 'ont know that that nigga
been doin--shit, I know what
I was doin up in Spofford--
so when I tole him I was having my
menstruals, he decided to get plexed.
He smoked a blunt and wouldn't
take me home and den the nigga
went n' fell asleep.
I was like damn, here I am
at Ray-Ray's crib and I got
a motherfuckin curfew and a
math test tomorrow (I'm trying
to do good in school for probation
and dis lady who teach english
say I got potential --which I did
look up in the dictionary. It mean
I gots mad promise if my ass don't
end up in jail).

So I'm lookin for a pencil,
anything to write on which,
when I find it, is a paper towel
and thinkin that Ray-Ray ain't
helpin me none and he must
be a stupid nigga to boot cuz
he ain't got no paper and I
had to sharpen the pencil
wit a knife. I starts to think
about findin me a new man.

Me and my math problems
plexing each other to death,
when Big Mac come knockin.
He Ray-Ray's cousin
so I let him in. He say,
     where Ray-Ray? I'm like he sleeping, he blunted out-
     Ahhe say,you wanna watch a movie

I look at the napkin, crunch it
up, make a perfect 3 pointer and
follow Big Mac to the living room.
He put in the tape and turn off the
light. Then the movie come on
and at first I'm fixin to git up cuz
this ain't my kind of movie --girls
in all kinds of crazy positions suckin
white boys off, bitches lettin 'em
whip they ass and tie em up. That's
at first, cuz the next thing I know
I'm feelin crazy shit go through me:
     cunt juice drippin down
     my leg and I'm freakin
     myself out cuz i thought
     that shit only happen at
     Spofford. Cuz I'm imagi-
     nin I'm stompin all the
     white boys. Walkin up to
     em while dey whippin dem
     girls and I'm stickin .45s in
     dey backs---but that ain't all.
     I'm thinkin after I kill em,
     de ladies gon want to fuck
     me, and yeah, that's the part
     I'm trippin on, that I want them
     to fuck me and that Ray-Ray
     didn't never make me feel like
     the cuties in juvee.
And I look over at Big Mac to see
if he know yet by the look on my face that
I'm a fuckin homo. Cuz if he don't know yet
I want to fix my face before he guess.
And when I look at him I'm like
I know this nigga done lost his mind cuz
the bitch is sittin there with his dick
outta his pants and his hand movin all
fast n shit and he stop when he see me,
den he start talkin real deep bullshit
he say,
     Rhonda come here, Why don't you
     do me, Come on Rhonda do me,
     Ray-Ray ain't gonna mind, I ain't
     gonna tell him.

He reach over and
touch my titty and me, ms. bad ass
all of a sudden cain't move
I'm frozen, I mean I couldn't move
     damn you cute
     girl, I wanna git my groove
     on wit you, I always...
The nigga
stop talkin then.
He all grunts and shit and I'm
imaginin I'm on another planet
tryin to think about the math test
and that lady-teacher I got
and I feel all that POTENTIAL
running the fuck away
cuz I won't claw this nigga to death
cuz I cain't even believe it's happenin
cuz he Ray-Ray's cousin and
cuz i ain't never felt no pain like this
so I don't feel it/ I /think/ bout/ this/
time/I/beat/this/bitch/ so /bad /she /lost/
6/ teeth/ and/ got /scars /to /this /day/
from/the box/ cutter/ I /slashed /cross
/her/face/

I guess he done cuz he start to say
somethin
     don't worry girl, I know you.......

And I don't hear the mothafucka
finish cuz I'm outta the room and
shakin Ray-Ray so hard he think
it's a earthquake in Bed-Stuy.
I make
that nigga
git up
and take
me home
in his mama's
raggedy-ass hoopty.

And I start cryin
when I see my projects
and commence to tellin
Ray-Ray everything.
First thing he do is say,
     hell naw, you my bitch,
     ah'm a take care of
     this shit.
Den he tell me to take a bath
an he gon call me after he settle
this shit.
Then he leave.
I let myself in and hope mama ain't wake.
She ain't.
I go to de bathroom,
flick de light on,
watch de roaches git
de fuck out my way,
and set the water to run.
I wuz gonna take a real
hot bath, but I
membered too
late we ain't got
no hot water right now.
So, I pullt the drain
and went to bed.
But all I'm thinkin
bout is my test
and my potential---
how ahm gon git it back--
so I find the damn book
and jist study and study and study
till round bout 7:30 when
I'm still wide awake and
fixin to go to the school.
For the first time I'm gon
make first period.
I'm steppin out the door and I see
Ray-Ray walkin up,
he look real mad.
I don't feel nothin but
good cuz I know I can
pass. He git closer and I
smell malt on him. He say,
     I see you like them clothes, bitch
and I'member right
then I ain't changed
he say it again,
     yeah, you like the fuck smell on them clothes.
I go "you crazy nigga,
I ain't like shit about yo cousin"
he like,
     you lyin cunt, Big tole me de
     whole story, He say you wanted to fuck him,
     He say you come over to him while he
     tryin to watch a movie and put
     your hand on his dick and
     He say he told you he wasn't gon'
     disrespect me like that but you kept
     touchin on him and I
     cain't blame the nigga
     for goin for his. I cain't believe you
     did that shit, Rhonda. You spose to
     be my girl and you go fuckin my cousin.

He got me backed up in
the corner in the lobby. People
see us and don't nobody say shit.
I don't say shit again cuz ahm in
shock and de only think I'm thinkin
is bout how
to figure x=y2
when he say
     You ain't got nothin to say, bitch
the way to solve x=y2 was
still runnin through my mind
when he hit me and I fell down
and I felt him kickin math answers
out my head.
I got sad cuz I wasn't gon' make
first period and my POTENTIAL
act like it ain't never comin back

-- letta simone-nefertari neely, When we were mud