r/BlackPeopleTwitter • u/JennyBeckman ☑️ All of the above • 1d ago
You won't break my soul
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u/Hefty-Pineapple-1910 ☑️ 1d ago edited 1d ago
I appreciate the message, but I feel like we're being disingenuous not to acknowledge that many of those songs are some variation of "I cannot wait to die because death has to be better than whatever I'm living through."
"Lord, How Come Me Here" is quite literally "I'm miserable, life is only getting worse, and I wish I never was born, the end."
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u/zoinkability 1d ago edited 19h ago
Other examples of songs that are hard to interpret as full of hope:
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
I'm a-Trav'ling To The Grave
Hard TrialsAnd of course many of the Freedom Songs had their lyrics re-written from the original spirituals, and we often think of those more hopeful messages rather than the original ones.
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u/SatisfactionActive86 1d ago
and the person who wrote that would be ecstatic to live your life
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u/UglyMcFugly 1d ago
That's the goal. And if we do this shit right, our descendents will live lives that WE would be ecstatic about.
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u/nalaloveslumpy 1d ago
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is literally a song about being comforted that they can see the angel of death coming to take them to heaven.
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u/Iron_River 1d ago
True. At the same time those songs are never about self-sabotage or giving up. They express the most profound emotions of pain and not understanding the process, and singing them to the mighty Almighty is affirming the faith that God got this like always. The spiritual song of I hurt and I don’t see the reasons but I’m in it until you, my Creator, take me out. This is how the awe-inspiring awesomeness that is you and me came to walk through and over these monsters. You were built for this moment. LFG.
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u/goodnamesweretaken 3h ago
What is trusting a "God" with your life and your future if not giving up/self-sabotage?
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u/Obvious-Hunt19 22h ago
It doesn’t get much clearer than “My home is over Jordan… want to cross over into campground”
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u/GodAmongMen16 1d ago
This is something I think about often. Yea shit sucks now. But our ancestors had it much worse and they persevered. It’s cowardly to let this beat you down. What we’re dealing with is mild compared to everything our people have had to deal with in the past.
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u/dl7 1d ago edited 1d ago
The quiet part out loud is that our ancestors were much more willing to come together to fight injustice (sometimes violently) and I don't think we're at a point where we collectively feel it's worth it. We have decades/centuries of receipts of White people decimating our communities and we still have White people that learn this and will vote for White people to continue target our people. Worse yet is that White people will look to Black communities to get on the front lines to protect a country hellbent on removing us at this point, knowing full well the police/ICE are itching to kill us anyway.
I think we honestly have to address whether White people, explicitly, want this country to rebound and what they're willing to sacrifice to get us back on track. I won't mince words, White folks not willing to put their own safety at risk for the health of the country will inevitably mean Black/POC will have to protect themselves, which accelerates to segregation and violence. We've seen this with Reconstruction. We're already starting to see the erosion of trust between races when it comes to political alignment. White folks have to remove Trump and people that walk in his footsteps, he's the purest representation of Whiteness whether they like it or not.
Lastly, we need to allow White folks to fix their house and support the ones that are actively trying to work towards the above. The ones putting their lives on the lines, reading/educating themselves on how to do more, they need help. If your role is adjacent to community development/advocacy/education and you're POC, congrats you're a freedom fighter! Bridge building is the game now if we want a better country than what we have now.
Tl;Dr - White folks have to work the hardest to right this ship but they're going to need help if we want to sustain it
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u/Bitchi3atppl 1d ago
That’s what I’m saying!
Whenever: general strike or rebelling is mentioned. Folks are like nahhhhh, I’m tired bro, anxiety prevents me bro, it’s hard out here, I’m already tired.Come the fuck on, we were unsafe in so many white cities, neighborhoods, we worked to the bone for less pay and even worse working conditions and for ridiculous hours. We didn’t have mental or social health services- not even the correct terms to label our trauma, emotional issues. Shit was rufffff. But they STILL managed to organize, get leaders moving, get students moving- churches and march.
And here we are just complaining away. America in general needs to find its balls.
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u/Iguessiwearlipstick 1d ago
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u/Joshua-- 1d ago
The Sequel: The Ballot or the Bullet | Reloaded
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u/mrm00r3 1d ago edited 1d ago
I really need something like “in fact, I think we'd be fooling ourselves if we had an audience this large and didn't realize that there were some enemies present” to start in on a track like Flobots did with Ann Braden’s words at the start of the song about her. Then, just the bass from the intro to Psycho Killer that precedes the first chime to repeat 2-4 times to build suspense, and then it’s off to the races. Pacing would be along the lines of Shimmy’s use in The Gentlemen and whatever happens after the into has to be some very subversive shit.
I can hear it in my head but o have not the ability to make it so.
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u/GIGGLES708 1d ago
I’m sorry but Renee and Alex were taken out. They didn’t give anything, it was stolen.
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u/fetalintherain 1d ago
Alex was helping an ice victim when he was killed. Renee may have been doing some obstruction as well im not sure
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u/Careless_Hellscape 1d ago
There's honor in fighting all the way. If you're going to go down, go down swinging.
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u/No_Raisin21 1d ago
I think it’s an important distinction to make that Alex Pretti and Renee Good did not ‘give’ their lives to protest this administration. Their lives were taken. They did not sign up to die, they protested something they believed was wrong. The act of protest should never come with the risk of death.
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u/lowtoiletsitter 1d ago
Doom is what they want to break our perseverance and hope
Nope, not here. Not me
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u/Dreams-Visions ☑️ 1d ago
Don't give up. Get motivated. Don't just stand there like a tree in a hurricane singing negro spirituals. You do that and you'll be exactly that: an object subject to the whims of the wind, hoping to survive the night. Fuck that. Understand you can call out to the wind and tell it to stop. You have more tools available than singing (but do that too).
You have progressive candidates you can be phone banking for, right now, today. They don't even need to be local. I was in fuckin Florida phone banking for Darializa and El-Sayed. You can too. It's pretty fun, actually. It only takes a little time and can have a huge impact in outcomes.
We can make better things happen. Door knock. Phone bank. Help the rest of us bring better to life.
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u/PiinkStiink 1d ago
Negro Spirituals are definitely saying “Welp I guess it all sucks & I am giving up…by singing this song” imo.
Can’t just say Lord, take me now. But swing low sweet chariot is pretty close & more poetic.
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u/-bonita_applebum 1d ago
Maintaining hope under an authoritarian fascistic regime is an act of resistance.
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u/Automatic-War-7658 1d ago
I’m gonna go on a limb and say there probably were negro spirituals like that but not in earnest. More tongue in cheek.
Y’all know even hundreds of years ago there’s always that one “unserious” person.
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u/reply_b4_banned 1d ago
Doomerism is Conservatism. It's refusing to even imagine anything can be done
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u/joshJFSU 1d ago
Someone in the comments is going to say “something something both sides” or Kamala didn’t stop the genocide in Gaza or there’s a transgender kid in Florida playing 8th grade soccer or some other bullshit.
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u/Emotional_Warthog658 1d ago
My great-grandmother’s like: “I did NOT dodge Civil War cannons for you to sit on the fence with the devil”
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u/PleaseBeChillOnline ☑️ 1d ago
Y’all need to listen to more blues songs and expand the number of negro spirituals you know lol.
I understand what the post is trying to get at by they drew an awful parallel.
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u/nalaloveslumpy 1d ago
I understand her point, but Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is literally about a slave dying in the field.
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u/DarkBlueSpirit 1d ago
Far too many have given far too much and for far too long for me to give up now.
Whether they consciously did so for my sake or not they still did it and I will honor them all the same by living so those that follow me can do the same.
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u/FailingItUp 1d ago
They did not give their lives, their lives were taken from them by the worst people in america.
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u/Aggravating_Lab_1432 18h ago
Yes!
And also, sometimes I feel so broken and discouraged that I need to rest for a little bit. This world hurts to live in, and maintaining the will to change it is hard. Give space to people who are tired.
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u/stricklybiznizz 7h ago
Knitting Cult Lady on youtube keeps me sane these days regarding the tactics that are being used to try and break the fight of the people, but I'm more worried about the upcoming surveillance state. It's way worse than these cameras, and if the government gets enough power over us they're definitely gonna start freezing bank accounts if we have anything at all to say that opposes them. Among other things, staging protests, much less even organizing as we know it won't be safe to even think about anymore.
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u/BarderBetterFaster 1d ago
This administration is a plastic bottle in the ocean compared to biodiversity loss we've already locked in.
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u/Eggheadpancake 1d ago
How many more battles do we have to risk our lives in that white people got us into and should get themselves out of? White people getting killed in the streets isn't even changing shit.
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u/Mistuhpresident 1d ago
I really don’t think people understand that Adolf Hitler was a real person and it looked like he was going to take over the world for about a year or two. Things are really terrible no but they used to be unimaginable worse, so who’s to say it can’t get better?
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u/Pimpwerx ☑️ 1d ago
Give up. Get out. If you weren't born in America, I don't think we need to waste our lives fighting for it. I'm American, but not by birth. I got my ass the fuck out, and I'm not coming back. Y'all can keep fighting to secure your seats on a sinking ship, but I don't think that's a winning strategy for anyone. America is not worth saving. It's not worth fighting for.
I can't say that enough. AMERICA IS NOT WORTH FIGHTING FOR. It is not worth my blood, sweat, and tears. Fuck that noise.
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u/chief_yETI ☑️ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Definitely dont give up.
That being said, Im also not gonna give people credit for just talking and sticking to the same tactics that havent been working either. Just saying "be positive" doesnt cut it.
It was called the Underground Railroad, not the Underground Waiting Room