As it is February and days away from Valentine’s Day, it is only appropriate to mention the concept of Black Love. Though it is often reduced to romantic relationships and seemingly validated only for cis-heterosexual couples, Black Love very much encompasses other sorts of relationships, especially that of family. It pays homage to the people who taught us what being Black was, how to put on our stockings right for church and tie our durags back for the best results.
For some, it is blood thicker than water, an inherent understanding between the people you laughed and cried with as you watched each other twist into new people and grow upwards. For others, family may look like the conscious decision to choose who you want at your graduations and your birthday parties on the basis that they see you more than blood ever could. There is a certain autonomy found in chosen family, that many are not granted with biological family–something that complicates one’s understanding of the world around them and themself.
It’s not a secret in the Black community that as a child, many people’s personhood went hand in hand with the personal comfort of moms and dads, aunts and uncles, grand and even great-grandparents. There was no greeting from the person who swore they changed your diaper when you were a baby, without a hug or leaving your great grandma’s house without a wet kiss on the cheek. Sure, your parents could scream a question at you or start an argument, but you knew better than to reply, than to speak up. Your elders always knew best—they “knew” all your identities, your struggles, your future, and if you even uttered something that didn’t fit into the framework of their thinking, it was downright disrespectful.
It can be argued that the Black family is similar to the romantic “Struggle Love,” that, yeah, things were uncomfortable, but you simply had to put up with it because generations of Black folks before you did and ended up “alright.” People are not alright, though, not when the community suffers from the myth of boundaries being something you have to earn. I remember growing up hearing how things couldn’t get on my nerves because “[I’m] too young to have nerves”, and that when I pointed out how I didn’t appreciate something, I was better off keeping my complaints to myself because “life is unfair.”
Even in the most freeing and healthy households, setting boundaries is a fundamental right that everyone deserves to have because we are human, regardless of age, regardless of who pays the bills or not. It is far from easy, and one should keep in mind the temperaments of their family and their personal safety, but it is doable. Sometimes setting a boundary looks like telling your dad you won’t be spoken over anymore or letting your sibling know not to call you that nickname you’ve always hated. It can be as big as cutting off family members entirely or as “small” as letting your cousin know you’re actually tired and don’t feel like talking on the phone til 3am.
It was just this year that my mom and I’s relationship reached a boiling point. I had always loved her and always will, but I could no longer pretend that I was hurt by years of not feeling heard and playing second fiddle to her emotions. A conversation that started out judgmental about my lifestyle as an Atheistic Goth, erupted into a several-hour-long session of me being as brutally honest as possible, letting go of every feeling that was trapped behind a bit tongue and every tear I had been taught made me sensitive. It was raw and human, and it created an understanding between me and my mother.
My life is not everyone’s, and I never want to speak on something as if there is one answer, a golden standard to demanding respect from family. There is not.
Instead, I implore you to question not just the bonds and understandings between your partners, but also those of your family, chosen or otherwise. People everywhere, but specifically in the Black family, have been made to feel unimportant when their boundaries deserve to be respected. You are not a windchime, not hardened clay full of holes to let things pass through and by you. The production of your sound, your purpose, is your own, and even after Black History Month, it remains true.