Time - USA (2021-02-15)

71

can’t just be ourselves, like they are.
In the end, the racism has not
knocked us out. Our chins are steel like
Adonis Johnson’s in Creed, like our real-
life fighter, Tarana Burke. In the end, as
Kendrick Lamar put it, “we gon’ be al-
right.” Toni was like our Harriet Tubman
before she passed away in 2019. She
guided us, willed us to escape the white
gaze, until we did.

When I Was younger, I often saw
myself and other Black people through
the eyes of white people. I worried about
what white people thought about me;
how I was appearing, speaking, acting,
being in their world. When I looked
in the mirror sometimes, I did not see
myself, for myself. I saw what the white
gaze saw and felt inadequate or proud;
and changed myself or rebelled—and
apologized for conforming or rebelling—
thus apologizing for being Black. I was
not alone.
But by the time I stood before those
Black students in October 2016, on the
eve of Donald Trump’s election, we were
no longer apologizing for who we were.
This is our world too. We were calling
ourselves “unapologetically Black” like
writer Damon Young of the Very Smart
Brothas. Whether that was the right
phrase or not isn’t important now. Our
collective sentiment was important.
Who knows when the Black Renais-
sance actually started? Perhaps 2015,
with a long pregnancy. It was the year
that Black Lives Matter, which origi-
nated with a Facebook post in 2013, ex-
panded into a movement. In April, Fred-
die Gray was killed by police officers and
Baltimore exploded. On June 16, Trump
announced his presidential bid, and the
very next day, a white supremacist mur-
dered nine Black churchgoers in South
Carolina after praying with them. “Our
mourning, this mourning, is in time with
our lives,” wrote poet Claudia Rankine
soon afterward. “There is no life outside
of our reality here.” There was no reality
outside of the death of Sandra Bland that
July. There was no reality outside of us
saying her name.
As Childish Gambino declared: “This
is America.”
But nothing baked our Black
Renaissance quite like the heat of the
first Black presidency. Barack Obama’s

Administration was akin to the Great

Migration for the Harlem Renaissance;

akin to the civil rights bills for the Black

Arts Movement. Our raised expectations

collided with the racism of the emerging

Tea Party. We witnessed the rising

opposition to the first Black presidency,

day after day, year after year. We came to

know full well that the more Black people

uplift themselves, the more we will find

ourselves on the receiving end of a racist

backlash like Obama was.

As writer and director Tonja Renée

Stidhum explained to CNN, “He was the

respectable Negro. He was biracial, wasn’t

dark-skinned, spoke the King’s English,

was smart, married and the head of a nu-

clear family. But still that wasn’t enough.”

Every cheap shot at Obama shot

down our worry about what white peo-

ple thought. Not because we univer-

sally adored him or agreed with all his

policies. The lesson was clear: If Obama

wasn’t enough, then we would never be

enough.

Many of us were taught to protect our-

selves through the white gaze— knowing

any off-beam move in this America could

be our downfall or death. But over the past

six years we’ve come to protect ourselves

from the white gaze— knowing we could

be shot at any point for no reason. So why

not live freely and create freely before our

downfall or death? Why can’t we be anti-

racist to prevent our downfall or death?

When I say we, I’m not saying all Black

creators have been thinking this way. I,

for one, am not always thinking this way:

my scholarship flows from research and

evidence, which can lead me anywhere.

But there do seem to be mainstream cur-

rents driving the Black Renaissance, that

many of us swim in and out of, or follow

like a stream of consciousness.

I cannot speak for the entire renais-

sance and all Black creators. I am not a

representative. Indeed, we chafe at the

idea that anyone can represent us. But

just as there are many ideas we disagree

upon, there are ideas many of us likely

share, or are sympathetic to, anti racist

ideas rooting our art, or watering our art,

or weeding our art. Escaping the white

gaze is one. Rejecting the politics of re-

spectability is another. Confronting rac-

ism while silently kneeling or stand-

ing loudly is another. Being our genuine

selves is still another. Maintaining an in-

clusive and complicated view of Black-

ness is yet another.

I could be wrong. I could be way off.

After all, we don’t like to be put into

boxes. Our stories often escape catego-

ries. Our lives are complex and heavy and

thick, like our humanity.

But we can be captured by painters

Awol Erizku and Amy Sherald. We can

be described by 2 Dope Queens in their

podcast, or by Roxane Gay in print. Part

of the job of creators is to describe our-

selves, and our cultures, and our nations,

while recognizing we are not bound by

ourselves, or our cultures, or our na-

tions. We are not bound by anyone or

anything or any gaze. Our imaginations

are not bound by racism. The Black Re-

naissance cannot be bound. The Black

Renaissance is fighting for the freedom

of being. The Black Renaissance is the

freedom of being.

We are free.

Kendi is the National Book Award–

winning author of seven books. His latest

is Four Hundred Souls: A Community

History of African America, 1619–2019

Our plays,

portraits, films,

shows, books,

music, essays,

podcasts

and art are

emancipating

the American

consciousness,

and banging on

the door of the

classical canon