A letter on apathy
Following the 2025 election, there has been a growing sentiment, particularly amongst middle-aged Black folks, that Black people have “done their part” politically and need to focus on themselves. At first, this was largely seen in the comment sections of social media posts that were explicitly political, such as news posts, but can now also be seen under videos of folks line dancing. Oftentimes, the video has a caption along the lines of “The entire country falling apart – Black people:” overtop visuals of Black folks participating in collective dance, essentially positing that Black people are choosing to stay out of “it.”
While I definitely found these videos somewhat enjoyable at first, I started to notice a disturbing trend. I was seeing folks weaponize the notion of Black joy to encourage disengagement from politics. This is not to say that the initial frameworks of Black joy entering the digital space post-election were wrong. Acknowledging and sitting in joy is a genuine way to center the beauty of the African experience and reject dehumanizing associations of Blackness with trauma. But this isn’t what I was seeing here. What I saw was folks plugging their ears to avoid contending with their hopes dashed, that maybe a Black Woman president could be the very thing to free us.
Notwithstanding the concerning aspects of this trend, there are very real aspects of resistance that our dance traditions make up. We have been able to retain cultural values and ultimately have a grounding in Africa through dance. I do not think it is inherently wrong to associate Black joy, line dance, and resistance. What becomes dangerous, however, is when we think we can ignore the very real material conditions of our people and essentially dance ourselves to freedom. Dance is one of the various artistic acts that contribute to our resistance, but it is not the only way we can resist in this political moment. With this misunderstanding, our meaningful traditions of communion, movement, and music are bastardized to align with a mentality directly opposite to our liberation.
Post-election, there was a very real point of awakening for many Black folks who actively participated in the “Stop Project 2025” movement. Voting had been marketed by the Democratic Party as the ultimate trump card: the only way to make meaningful change in your community. But it was quickly revealed that the system people thought they could rely on, or could use to win, had once again failed them and all colonized people, resoundingly.
What is alarming to me is that instead of acknowledging what ultimately boils down to a twisted sort of grief, Black folks have moved towards apathy. When I see “We need to protect our peace!”, or “This isn’t our fight!” under a post of a Palestinian child being blown in half, or a Congolese child staring into the camera with the shine of a thousand cobalt mines in their eyes, I’m seeing hyperindividualism. I’m seeing something not in alignment with the humanity of our people, or any people.
When we say “protect our peace”, who does our peace benefit? We must ask ourselves this. Apathy has never been the history of our people. African people have resisted, and will continue to resist, all manifestations of colonialism Western hierarchy through liberation. This will remain true whether we try to drown out the sound of our people’s screams or we commit to one another. What would happen if we seriously invested in our communities and organizations beyond just verbal declarations of support? What would happen if we began practicing new modes of being that reject current systems of hierarchy? Of course, everyone can’t be on the front lines, but they don’t have to be. They need to be conscious enough to care.
The desire for joy in the current political moment is not wrong, but we can create spaces of joy surrounded by resistance, rather than resort to what are ultimately hyper-individual modes of thought. Putting cotton in our ears and acting like the empire isn’t collapsing around us – and not seeing the opportunity to build freedom in its rubble – isn’t going to keep us any safer.