Joy is Resistance
It's easy to feel like only the big stuff matters, but resistance to injustice is sometimes about pool, cake, and dancing.
“Joy is an act of resistance.” - Toi Derricotte
If you scan Twitter, you may find signs of the thought police telling us what we can and can’t think is important in a pandemic. The New York Times itself recently published an opinion piece implying that any topics much outside of digital privacy, global wealth redistribution, and scientific accuracy in health tracking were beneath us. I couldn’t help but notice that excluded my thoughts for that exact day: making my Nana’s cake recipe, whether or not I should buy a mixer, and pointing out the ongoing trend of white women influencers plagiarizing Black women on the internet.
If we only think about what matters on the most global scales, what does that mean for our day-to-day lives? If we only stand for justice at the level of public policy and not at the daily level, what are the acts of justice while we shelter-in-place?
Well, if you can guess, I think making our ancestors’ cake recipes and demanding that Maya Angelou get all the credit (and more) for her every word—I think these things count. In fact, the more we plunge our fight for justice into the joy of our daily lives and our celebration of the voices who move us, the more we are fueled do the critical work of public policy, technology ethics, and health justice.
Take for example, chief among our heroes, Martin Luther King, Jr. We read his books. We replay his sermons. We quote his speeches. We celebrate his birthday, his Nobel Peace Prize, his oratory skill, his perseverance. Rightly so. I celebrate all of those things, too.
But I wonder.
What would happen if we also celebrated the humanity of King? I’ve seen my fair share of King photos, but this year I saw for the first time a photo of King playing pool. Several gorgeous black and white shots capture King with a smile, a pool stick aimed at the multicolored balls. One even has him taking a complicated shot with the pool stick behind his back; he smiles confidently.
Turns out, King’s enjoyment of pool is pretty well-documented. He started playing during seminary and continued to find it a place to spend time with regular folk.
Regular.
We don’t think of King as regular. But I think we should. Not in an attempt to downplay his work, brilliance or accomplishments. I think we should learn more about regular King because it’s just as important to racial justice. King’s laughter matters. King playing with his daughters and kissing his wife matters. King joking with his friends and teasing the people he was also leading is important. King’s humanity matters, because that’s how we know we can make a difference too. King believed deeply that all of us regular folks could make a difference. He knew that he needed us, needed regular folk to fight for our community, for our freedom.
Regular people. People like you and me.
Regular joy. Joy is Resistance.
Let’s not forget the humanity of our heroes. And let’s not ignore our own humanity, even as we seek to make a difference in the world. The wide-ranging systemic injustices of our world aren’t moved by singular heroes fighting complex causes. Sometimes they are moved by cake, by a beloved quote, by Black joy in the face of a pandemic playing by the same racially unlevel playing field as everything else.
So play pool or cards. Read Maya Angelou. Dance in your living room.
If I can't dance, it's not my revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
If there won't be dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming.- Emma Goldman
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