Mary-Frances Winters - Black Fatigue

Note on capitalization: I capitalize Black and lowercase white when referring to these two identity groups to follow Brookings recent decision, after months of research, to change its style guide in this way. Brookings rationale is as follows: It is an act in recognition of racial respect for those who have been generations in the lower case.

When I conceived the idea for Black Fatigue in the fall of 2019, Black colleagues and friends urged me to write it as soon as possible. They said we need to chronicle the fear, frustration, anguish, and, yes, rage that is a regular part of many Black peoples daily lives and how it affects the mind, body, and spirit. Living while Black is a term coined to embrace the myriad unjust and inequitable experiences that are relentless and too often lead to violence against Black people.

This was before the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020 and the global, organized, and powerful rebellions against systemic racism that started in May 2020. These events changed the world as we know it forever and served to put a spotlight on Black fatigue.

Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world died from the highly contagious virus, for which there was no vaccine at the time. Black and Brown people were disproportionately affected, dying at rates two to four times the rate of white people. Black people were also more likely to lose their jobs during the pandemic or have essential jobs that meant greater exposure to the disease. Shelter-in-place orders were enacted, and food and other essentials were scarce. Makeshift hospitals were set up to accommodate the surge in cases, and miles-long lines of cars waiting for food rations were common. People all over the world were enduring unimaginable stress and pain. Black people were even more severely affected.

And then, over the course of 30 days in the spring of 2020, the public learned of the tragic deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. They were unarmed Black people killed at the hands of law enforcement. There were others who did not get the same media attention, such as Tony McDade, a Black transgender man who was killed by the police in Florida, though the reports indicate that the circumstances around his death are murky. Nina Pop, a Black transgender woman, was stabbed to death in Missouri in a possible hate crime. Two Black men were found hanging from trees in neighboring communities in California under suspicious circumstances.

George Floyds murder was the tipping point. Many sat in disbelief and horror as they watched the video footage, taken by a 17-year-old girl, of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, with his hands in his pockets, blatantly and cavalierly pressing his knee against Floyds neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd pleaded for his life. He said 15 times, I cant breathe, officer. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and it would be days before any charges were brought against Chauvin and weeks before charges were brought against the other three officers involved. In the case of Ahmaud Arbery, he was gunned down in Georgia as he was jogging in his neighborhood; the public did not hear of it for almost two months, and it took another month for the perpetrators (self-proclaimed law enforcers) to be arrested. Breonna Taylor was in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, when police, executing a no-knock search warrant for drugs in the middle of the night, shot her at least eight times. They had entered the wrong house.

These tragic incidents in a short time span in 2020 amplified, in gory detail, the centuries-old, willful disregard for Black lives. We were reminded of the period in our history when Black men were lynched, put on public display as a means of terrorizing and controlling. These recent deaths are examples of modern-day lynching. And there are so many more examples throughout history of Black people being targeted and killed. One of the most famous atrocities is that of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

Around the same time as George Floyds murder, Amy Cooper (a white woman) was walking her dog in Central Park and Christian Cooper (not related, a Black man) was bird-watching. He requested that she keep her dog leashed in accordance with park regulations. She refused to do so, and a verbal dispute ensued, with Ms. Cooper calling 911, ranting that an African American man was threatening her and her dog. Mr. Cooper remained calm throughout the ordeal, urging her to call authorities. Ms. Cooper was fired from her job at a large financial services company.