Hey Black/black People, Where Have You Been?

We talk endlessly about community.

We talk about how nobody supports us.

Nobody amplifies us.

Nobody funds us.

Nobody shows up for us.

Nobody creates spaces for us.

And yet, when someone actually tries to build something?

Silence.

That is the part I keep coming back to.

I have been here. Writing.Researching.Creating.Sharing resources.Starting conversations. Building something rooted in Black life, Black thought, Black women, community, education, grief, joy, survival, contradiction, and everything in between.

And quite often?

Silence.

So I have a question.

Where have you been?

Because community cannot just be something we demand from governments, institutions, corporations, organizations, and everybody else.

At some point, we have to ask what we are willing to give one another.

A click.A comment.A share.A recommendation.A subscription.A conversation.A little bit of attention paid before somebody has to collapse in public to deserve it.

I am not asking everybody to like me.

I am not asking everybody to agree with me.

And I am certainly not asking anybody to rescue me.

But I am asking us to stop performing community while ignoring the people around us who are trying to create it.

We are very good at talking about support.

Very good at naming the absence of it.

Very good at explaining what Black people are denied.

Very good at mourning what should have been done.

But what about the people who are here now?

What about the people building things now?

What about the people asking to be seen now?

What are you waiting for — another dead body?

Another tragedy to repost?

Another name to hashtag?

Another funeral to suddenly remind us that community matters?

Another Black person to become valuable only after they are gone?

Because if we only become interested in one another when there is a crisis, a controversy, a death, or a trending hashtag, then perhaps what we are looking for is not community.

Perhaps it is attention.

And those are not the same thing.

Community is not a slogan.

Community is not a hashtag.

Community is not something you perform when everyone is watching.

Community is what you do when nobody is clapping.

It is showing up.

It is paying attention.

It is sharing somebody else’s work.

It is making room.

It is acknowledging effort.

It is supporting people while they are still alive enough to feel it.

So again:

Where have you been?

And perhaps the more uncomfortable question:

What are you really about?