I'm still processing this so bare with me... so I think death has always been something that can be traumatizing. When we lose someone that we love or care for, it hurts. We mourn. We might be sad for a period after and we have to readjust our lives without that person...

however, there's something that makes me feel like post colonization post western domination....death became almost *more traumatic* for Black people specifically for a few reasons...

1. our concepts of Death in the West are not the same concepts of death that we carried on the continent. Even if we look at the "cycle of life" through the Dikenga/ Kongo Cosmogram. Everything dies, everything finna be born, everything returns to spirit realm in a cycle.

so this isn't to suggest that our Kongo ancestors did not mourn or were not traumatized by death....but if you lived in a community that saw life/death as cyclical and almost one in the same...I imagine that would give some relief to a mourning person?

My Ifa/Orisha folks (Yoruba/Nigeria) always saying "Heaven is home and earth is the marketplace" Imagine living in a culture that sees earth as where your spirit goes to just get some shit done? I *imagine that that may bring some relief to a grieving person who lost a loved one

Now I do think lots of Black folks still carry the belief of going "home" to heaven and that does give us some peace... but imagine if it was fully ingrained into our societal norms and we had places to fully grieve + feel? and had a framework around it.

SECONDLY. Grief rituals have always existed for our people ALWAYS. When somebody dies our people have always made a big deal about that shit from Africa to now! We sang, we wailed, we did ritual, we cried, we screamed, we fed the spirit, we fed the community, we danced...

and we do that in funeral homes now....but there's something that still feels held back sometimes. We still sing and cry and wail and eat but idk...there's something that feels disjointed to me. Idk what it is and can't put it into words right now...

We still have held on deeply to our traditional roots but maybe it's the lack of follow up?? Maybe it's because in the west some of us have sort of adopted this idea of once somebody is dead, they are just dead. and...no. bc there's space to continue to build a relationship with

that person. maybe that's what it is that I feel? I'm thinking out loud. and you know, even being in the west I think that the ways that our people die increases the trauma of death itself. Like niggas constantly murdered, dying of sickness bc of lack of access to health..

black mamas dying during childbirth, Black people just be dying in a way that other people are not dying. So death is already traumatic and now the WAYS that we are dying put more trauma on top of an already traumatic experience. Am I making sense?

Yes we all die but NIGGAS DIE DIFFERENT. And now with this Covid-19 shit our bodies are being piled up in rooms in hospitals and families can't even see their loved ones AND we can't perform whatever rituals we do, or proper burials and it just... I just can't.

Once our people stepped foot on American soil via chattel slavery we started dying different. Which means the ones who died here have a bit of a different transition story than the ones before.

We were told to abandon our beliefs and how we see the world...many of which we have held and even more of which we lost. Death sort of became this fearful sort of bad "dark" thing because of HOW we started dying.

So yeah, idk. Death sucks and it hurts and is traumatizing. And when I have lost and inevitably will lose more loved ones imma be a wreck. But there's some solace I get to carry because I know and am in intimate relationship with people who are dead. But everybody ain't got it.

and everybody don't believe it. and when you talk about it niggas look at your crazy. but even acknowleding the dead does wonders for a grieving heart. even if you ain't no medium or you don't see dead people. it's not even about that. it's about our ancestors literally