Summer Feelings I Know To Be True

This summer I have frequently asked myself “Why am I so exhausted?” My recent daydreams have all involved a large(r) glass of red wine, Netflix, and my 3 year old pitmix, Dax. I have tried to explain the daydreams and the exhaustion away by telling myself that it’s just “that time of year” in higher education: the preparation for student leader training, orientation processes, and the planning of year-round programming is upon us. Regardless of how I try to rationalize the fatigue of my body, my mind has continued to race. I continue ask myself “What’s wrong with me?”

I called up a (unbelievably fantastic) friend for a much needed chat. It was in this conversation that I started to unpack my weariness. I discovered she was also experiencing exhaustion and fatigue, and that her heart had a familiar heaviness. Together we discussed major news stories of the last few weeks: Rachel Dolezal, Charleston, Marriage Equality, and Sandra Bland. Together we started to expose the complexities our mixed race, queer narratives had in relation to those events.

After that conversation, and a good amount of self-reflection, these are the feelings I know to be true:

1. I am angry towards a white woman who has identified as black and received praise for the justice work she has done for almost a decade. A white woman who has been labeled by the media as transracial. A white women who attempted to pass as biracial.

2. I think I am supposed to feel unwavering joy because I can now marry another woman in all 50 states, but instead my joy is swallowed by the fact that marriage equality does not magically end LGBTQ homeless youth, racial profiling, employment discrimination or violence against trans* folks.

3. I am (at times) ashamed of my skin’s (lack of) color. I live in a city where I have been told that I “pass”; that my blackness is unseen by some. I have been told that I am “safe.”

4. I am in pain. I want to stand, arms linked, with my POC family for what has happened and continues to happen to black bodies in America.

5. I am conflicted. I want to stand with my POC family and fight injustices but I worry that my blackness is not enough to occupy adequate space in Black places. I am left wondering if I can weep for Sandra Bland as my Black sister or weep out of solidarity because my blackness will never be blatantly brutalized as hers was. But am I not my sister's keeper?

This summer I have frequently asked myself “why am I so exhausted?” I have come to the conclusion that this fatigue is a reaction to Freddie Gray, to Rachel Dolezal, to Charleston, to South Carolina and to Sandra Bland. My body and heart are in mourning. My body and heart are allowed to mourn. As a mixed race women, I continue to navigate my racial privileges and oppression.

I must own my whiteness.

But nothing can negate that I AM a woman of color.

Now, I must give myself permission to be exhausted. I need to allow my own self-care to take place through reflection, large(r) glass of wine, and re-runs of Star Trek.

Jacquis is an Assistant Director in the Office of Diversity and Intercultural Development at Maryland Institute College of Art.