Janessa E. Robinson

I am wary of celebrating accountability for something that is preventable.

A recent rally was held in NYC to honor Rekia Boyd, another casuality of police brutality. No one showed up.

Blacks are being systematically controlled and oppressed through prison, probation, or parole.

The Western world defines terrorism through an almost exclusively Islamophobic narrative. In 2002, the first terrorism case tried under the newly-created anti-terrorism law charged a black man with terrorism for attempting to shoot fifteen people and rub Chick-fil-A sandwiches on their faces. Yes. He was charged with terrorism.

I live my life at the intersections of blackness and womanhood, which means my presence is doubly erased and my words often fall on deaf ears. Even in spaces created to challenge power structures that disempower black women, we often find ourselves seemingly shouting our grievances into the ether.

Self-care is hard, but it is especially necessary for those of us engaged in activism. It is easy to become so engrossed with activism (which, as you know, focuses on organizing and combating oppression) that self-care falls by the wayside. Participating in self-care, in fact, is a revolutionary act, and it should be equally ingrained in activism work. Out of selflessness, however, activists often put greater needs above our own.