We’re Not Always Happy And That’s Okay
You deserve to be happy, but you also deserve to have the space and the time not to be happy as well. Positive vibes only and don’t worry be happy sound great, but they aren’t always realistic. It’s time to have a serious look at happiness.
There’s this myth that Black people are always happy. This can be partially attributed to centuries of artwork that depicted Black people with big smiles —- simple-minded and oppressed. Those depictions are lies.
All it takes is a quick power-study session of Black American history to see that it isn’t sunshine and roses. From slavery to Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement, we’ve been out here struggling and fighting.
Even with recent studies reporting that income increases make us happy, the generational trauma and reluctance to acknowledge mental health struggles have still masked the fact that while we often laugh or joke, as a community, structural racism steals our joy.
Society has tried to insist upon constant positivity while excluding the history of racially targeted suffering that has been thrust upon us for generations. And yet we’re still winning. How is that possible?
It’s not that we lack joy; it’s that we choose to actively seek ways to combat the generations of trauma we hold within. We have found ways to be deliberately joyful. And that’s something to smile about.
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