Why Your Black Ass Should Be Grateful in 2017
Welcome back to This Black-Ass Life! For our fifth installment of the newsletter, we’re doing things a little differently with an overall theme of joy and gratitude. Stress and the wear and tear of daily life disproportionately affect Black people and lead to disastrous health issues. Being grateful and cultivating joy is one small way that we can reclaim our time and our sanity. We can help you do just that with a reminder of some of the Black-Ass events and people that made us grateful for Blackness in 2017.
In theme, we’ll kick this off with thanks to loyal readers Suvam and Charlie for sending Kanye updates, and Mabinty for sending a Black-Ass text from a mama - we appreciate you!
Don’t forget: Send us topics, texts from your parents, Kanye Omari West updates and any Black-Ass anything from around the world and the web. Don’t forget to also forward to your friends to subscribe.
I. The Facts
We don’t know about you, but 2017 will go down as one of the most stressful years of our Black-Ass lives. Even though we are weeks away from 2018, we are 1) Amazed that we made it this far and 2) Thankful that we survived. Not only that, our Black asses THRIVED in 2017. Here are some of the things we are thankful for this year:
The year started with Moonlight snatching the Oscar right out of La La Land’s hands.
Throughout 2017, Black people just kept blessing the world with genius in:
2017 gave us yet another reminder that Black women are still smarter and more enterprising than everybody else in America. Also, never forget that we stay bailing everybody out and that White women have yet to learn.
Lebron called Trump a bum and better yet - doubled down.
Why is this important?
We know you already know this, but the Black experience comes with traumatic physiological and psychological effects (see our past four newsletters). We really don’t want to get into that because we are trying to cultivate joy and gratitude in this newsletter, but check out these articles to learn more about the harmful effects of racism.
What can my Black Ass do?
It’s imperative we try to mitigate stress by seeking out things that relax us or make us happy - like yoga, meditation, nice candles or listening to Mariah Carey’s Christmas album. If you need a boost of serotonin this Holiday season, just watch the legend work.
Take stock and have perspective. Yes, under Nectarine Noriega, Black people face an uncertain and very scary present. But don’t get it twisted, the western world was and is currently an engine of White supremacy. The truth of the matter is that our ancestors survived, created, flourished and overcame under worse than Cheeto Benito. While being literally owned by White people, Black people invented tools that modernized American manufacturing and trade like the steamboat propeller and cotton scraper; while living under the terror of Jim Crow, Black people created jazz; and while living in colonized and occupied territory, Black people from Africa and the Caribbean wrote literary masterpiece after literary masterpiece after literary masterpiece dissecting the psychological and communal trauma of colonialism.
Be grateful for the work that the ancestors have done to get us this far and know that you got this.
II. Other Things
Robert Mugabe Steps Down
On November 21, 2017, Robert Mugabe stepped down as the President of Zimbabwe after thirty-seven years in power. For many Africans, Mugabe leaves a confusing legacy. In the last two decades, Mugabe is squarely in the despotic autocrat corner, but at one point, Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa and Mugabe was hailed as a freedom fighter and the “Lion of Africa.”
Accompanying this news is the fact that the now former first lady Grace Mugabe no longer has diplomatic immunity or the power to steal farm land and beat up models with extension cords.
Our Black-Ass song of the week (Jumoke):
We are writing this on Sunday night and have just rediscovered the joy that is Pretty Ricky. Shout out to Pleasure P, Spectacular, Baby Blue and Slick'em for the hits after hits after hits they gave us in the mid-aughts.
Obligatory Kanye check-in:
Thanks to Charlie for this update: Kanye West Is Reportedly Producing Albums for Every G.O.O.D. Music Artist—And Kid Cudi
Shout out to Suvam for this update and accompanying note, “the kids are alright:” Inside the Kanye Superfans’ Scheme to Beat Taylor Swift on the Charts
Things we are looking forward to / things we are not looking forward to:
I (Mitu) absolutely love Christmas movies and look forward to (re)watching A Diva’s Christmas Carol, This Christmas, Almost Christmas, The Best Man Holiday, The Preacher’s Wife, Last Holiday, A Christmas Melody and so many more.
I (Jumoke) am not looking forward to anything associated with Lena Dunham, but because of Lena’s ignorant ass, I did learn more about Zinzi Clemmons and her book, “What We Lose,” which I’m excited to read.
III. Thanks to Mabinty for finding this text from a worried and lowkey psychic Black-Ass mama
Have a great week! Also, Junot Diaz wants you to “remember that you are a child of Blackness and Blackness was not meant to survive. We have survived and we have thrived and we have given this world more genius than we have ever received.” Stay grateful, stay Black and we’ll hit you with another newsletter the week of December 18.