subtext: the personal is always political.
sitting across from my mother in the home her new white husband bought for her in california, i am struck by the noticeable shift in her demeanor when he leaves the room. when he is in the room she sits straight up, her legs crossed and her arms perched on the knees, hands fluttering upwards from time to time in sharp, birdlike movements that are at once flirtatious and shooing. i cannot place it, but her body, statuesque in its neutral gray turtleneck and black pencil skirt, feels diplomatic. the moment he leaves the woman sitting across from me leaves as well and suddenly my mother is in her place. as the front door shuts behind us and we are alone with one another my mother’s eyes flash with sudden life, squinting with excited mischief, and she leans forward, taking my rough hand in her soft manicured one.
“Now we’re alone,” she says, utterly charmed at the possibility of occupying the living room sofa with me without an onlooker. “We have so much to talk about, so much I haven’t been able to say since we last spoke! Everyone’s been so busy. Girl, let’s dish.”
in this moment my body, my mother’s body, this living room becomes a site for celebration. there are secrets and emotions my mother feels that for whatever reason she does not feel safe or welcome to explore and evoke when in the presence of white people, even if that person is her husband. the affect my mother wears now is incredibly different than the one i’ve seen around her white friends. my five-foot-one respectability politics abiding mother suddenly becomes loud, carefree, excitable, tough and a touch lewd as she gossips, nails clicking together with every accentuated point to ensure i know just how important her comments are.
i change too. my body language opens up, my smile relaxes, i am comfortable here in this space where my black femaleness, if not my black nonbinary gender identity, is appreciated and welcomed. i ask her questions about herself, how she feels to be black and a woman and married to a white man. my mother pauses before responding, “I love him. I love him and I love my white friends, I care for them, I genuinely do. But there is a different love going on right here between us that is beyond that, and that has nothing to do with you being my daughter. This is how I talk to my black girlfriends. This is me in rare form. This is how I connect when I feel low.”
that this opening up of the self, this vulnerability, is considered “rare form” highlights the role of exultant blackness in the creation and sharing of black sisterhood. the desire to share, to become vulnerable, to open up and expose and to do so in a communal space is a common one experienced by all human beings, but primarily a facet of what i call an exultant blackness.
exultant blackness is an expository love, demonstrative and protective in its dynamicism, a mechanism to find, share, and cultivate joy — it is not carefree but it is joyous, a radical love that grows more radical because it operates in, but does not require, publicity. exultant blackness bridges physical gaps and fills emotional potholes. It is the more raucous and communal companion to Quashie’s conceptualization of quiet, a shared space maker that defies the social uneasiness of the white social pressures lurking outside of it. in public, black women do not have the luxury to have multiple emotions for fear of being deemed “angry” — exultant blackness brooks no stereotype. in intimate spaces where exultant blackness is being expressed, the black female subject is allowed, invited, and encouraged to emote in ways the outside world does not permit. exultant blackness allows such spaces to become sites of celebration — areas where black women can express vulnerabilities, joys, and concerns without fear of ridicule or shame. exultant blackness acts as a vehicle for black women’s self expression to enter the world in safe and intimate settings. working in tandem with Kevin Quashie’s and Elizabeth Alexander’s conceptualizations of quiet and the black interior, exultant blackness becomes a sharing of the black interior. it is a creator of space for black thought, innovation, and consideration.exultant blackness takes up space with no regard for what whiteness already exists there, it subverts and converts white spaces to create pockets of black jubilee uninhibited by the outside world. exultant blackness does not ignore whiteness — it dismisses it at the door without ever inviting it inside.
an example of exultant blackness at work is the interaction between Viola Davis and Taraji P. Henson at the 2015 Emmy Awards. both Viola Davis and Taraji Henson are up for the same award in the category Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series, yet, when Davis is announced as the winner, the energy with which Henson responds is the same as if it is her who has won. in the moment that Taraji leaps up from her chair to embrace and support Viola Davis on her way to the stage, the necessity and effects of exultant blackness in the lives of black professional women becomes readily apparent. Taraji’s exaltation transforms the historically white space of the Emmys into a cite of black celebration. similarly to the span of the overhead cameras fades out the faces of the other white nominees to center on Davis’ visage, so too does Taraji’s exaltation highlight Davis’ accomplishments and worth in ways that the fumbling span of the camera and the lackluster if polite applause of the white audience do not. the value both of them hold for one another and themselves in the black interior expresses itself through their bodies, in the way Viola collapses into Taraji’s arms almost in disbelief and Taraji tightens her grip on her, as if the more tightly she holds her the longer she can remind her of how important she and her work are. it is the evidence of Taraji’s admiration of Viola that stirs the white audience and eventually leads to several, but not all, in attendance to stand and clap for Viola’s victory. notably, the black men visible on screen do not share Taraji’s extreme joy; they are as lackluster as the black audience. this win, it seems, is not for them.
exultant blackness’ ability to transfer sentiment from the interior mind and heart to the exterior world identifies it as a powerful tool in the lives of black women who are often admonished for being too expressive or not expressive enough. exultant spaces make room for outbursts of emotion that are discouraged in most other settings, because exultant blackness pushes whiteness from the space and positively centers the attention on the black subject’s emotions. its expository nature allows Taraji to express her joy without shame and for Viola to receive Taraji’s support with gratitude and without fear of ridicule or retaliation. it allows them to support one another publicly in a way that is, somehow, still incredibly intimate.
however, i argue that exultant blackness is limited by a weakness of the spirit. spiritual weaknesses relates to the poor ability of black exultation to travel across great distances. for instance, in the clip with Taraji Henson and Viola Davis at the recent Emmy’s, Taraji holds unblinking eye contact with Viola for as long as possible, as if in doing so she can in some way transfer a sense of protection, authority and love to Davis. yet the minute Davis turns away and heads for the stage Taraji’s ability to offer exultant love is greatly diminished both physically and in spirit, because the domineering whiteness of the stage, the ambivalence of the audience, and the mass of white faces separating the two women immediately rush in to take up the space Taraji’s radical love had carved out. exultant love’s inability to retain strength when confronted with distance is a weakness, but it is one Taraji accounts for when she holds Davis close to her, almost as if by pressing as close to her as possible some part of her — some imprint or impression of that love — can be carried, physically and emotionally, to the places Taraji cannot follow. exultant blackness requires some level of contact or physical presence in order to occur and sustain itself; it can exist but won’t survive in a void.
the physicality of exultant blackness is indeed a limitation, but one that black women continue to circumvent. an example of this is found in the multitude of websites that have cropped up over the past five years made by and/or black women. websites and blogs like KeepItSimpleSista, Gradient Lair and Awesomely Luvvie signify the ways black women reach out to and seek to celebrate one another’s existence and accomplishments.
these websites become modes through which black women have and continue to vocalize the ideas, thoughts, and fears historically relegated to silence. these websites act similarly to the physical embrace shared by Viola Davis and Taraji Henson. they are a physical manifestation of their love and support of one another, means to reach out and broach physical distance.
exultant blackness is nominal because of its role in sustaining the black female spirit. it is rare and often hard to come by in a world that does not privilege black femaleness nor black women’s lives, and so it is eagerly sought after in the form of gossiping with one’s “black girlfriends”. black exaltation functions on the knowledge that not everyone wants to encourage black jubilee, so those that do must be cultivated, cared for, encouraged and protected. black exultation is radical for being the love that keeps on waiting; the desire to share one’s black experience sustains the individual until the next moment such exultation is possible or, in the case of my mother and i, the ones you love return to you. yet the rareness my mother points out reminds us of the limits of black exultation. black exaltation relies on proximity. strong in concentrated doses in black social spheres and communities, it loses power when diluted by white spaces, white ignorance, whiteness itself. my mother’s exaltation could not survive the thousands of miles between us as i went to school in iowa, instead harboring itself in her breast until the next time i saw her. taraji and viola’s love lost power as viola advanced towards the stage and taraji remained in the audience. its inability to physically broach distances directly correlates to the loneliness, disconnection, fear and irritability many black women feel in all-white or mostly-white spaces.
yet such love would not be radical if it did not defy the disparities caused by white spaces/white emotional gaps. black women and black female bodied peoples, the next time you feel hollow, or tired, or sad, reach out to another woman/person of color and celebrate yourselves. you’ve more than earned it.
