Boundary Setting: An Understated Revolutionary Tool for Black Folks
(Essence Rogers was the guest editor for this piece.)
Protecting Black lives means safeguarding not only from police and systemic trauma, but also being guarded in the ways we interact with the world, our white affiliates, Black folks, and even ourselves.
I reside at the intersection of Blackness, womanhood, and queerness, and dedicate much of my time to healing, understanding, and establishing new ways of happy living - especially for folks like myself. My mission calls for consistent evolution and reminding folks to maintain boundaries in order to find peace. Ironically, the past few months have been incredibly triggering and have mobilized me to rethink the ways in which I set boundaries and for whom I must apply said boundaries.
This piece is not to provide rules for all Black folks; this is not law. This is, however, what I have found to work for me right now, and what I have found to be most true in this moment.
I had no idea how layered and nuanced this reformation of personal and intrapersonal adjustments would be, let alone when it was coming or if it would even be necessary. I did not anticipate these new conversations to come up, and although they swam around in the back of my mind in previous times, I used to push them under the rug because they just weren’t as prevalent or important as I anticipated they would eventually become.
When I was first inspired to write this piece, I was at the height of exhaustion. My learnings, explorations, and calculated approaches were initially given as sound advice to Black peers, doled out during venting sessions with some friends, and personally exercised while communicating with others. Based on frequent trials, this information has yet to backfire, and I feel that I have a much better grasp on boundary setting. I am still tired - however, I am a lot more direct and at peace because of it.
Your rest, your boundaries, are revolutionary. Don’t let anyone walk over you, and don’t push further yourself if it doesn’t align with your agenda or your needs.
Explore More Boundary Setting with Black folks. From toxic relationships, with skin folk who ain't kinfolk and kinfolk who don’t give a damn. I find we spend so much time explaining to white folks that Black folks are not a monolith, and then, I realized there are moments where I forget it myself. I trembled, angered with Candice Ow*ns and her ass-backwards ideologies. I was stunned by folks in my personal network who posted homophobic, transphobic, anti-Black, gaslighting content, which for me, only exacerbated the fire that we’ve been trying to put out this whole time. I’ve found myself frustrated with folks who believe Black gayness in its entirety is a political agenda to emasculate Black men. I took deep breaths after seeing Facebook friends post, “What about Black on Black crime,” and even my beloved friends who, despite being unaware of trauma porn, proceeded to post video recordings of our folks being murdered and assaulted at the hands of police. (I don’t have to watch it, to know it happens.) We have to set boundaries with a lot of folks, even the ones we love. I believe that failure to boundary-set can, in some circumstances, directly or indirectly kill us - especially in the case of Black lives at the mercy of systemic oppression.
Of course, conflict is not always a negative thing. Take note that navigating conflict with patience, and noticing how your Black counterparts treat you, is everything. Set up your boundaries for relationships that do not service you. Before, we had the outdoors and frequent socializing to cope and escape facing our realities. Now we are staring truths right in their faces - seeing the folks in our network who are committed to respectability politics - and we can’t escape it. While not all relationships can be ended indefinitely, we can indeed maintain boundaries with folks for our own sanity.
Here are ways we can set boundaries when it comes to Black folks around us:
Set the intention to be around folks who mean you well. And for those that disservice you, part ways. Separate yourself, if you must, by any means necessary.
Acknowledge that gray areas can exist, but not at the expense of a life, especially a Black/Trans/Woman’s life. So whether or not they feel that “gayness” is a sin, their justification of dehumanizing LGBTQ+ folks, and or their failure to acknowledge things like trans deaths by the numbers going unreported or incorrectly reported is part of the problem.
Keep the phone calls to limited topics. Set a timeframe for how long you agree to speak.
Make an escape plan if you need to get away from the person or the conversation. Have a friend you trust accompany you to the uncomfortable spaces, have a form of transportation to leave the event, make sure you know where the exit is if things go awry.
Set limitations on social media. Facebook and Instagram have extensive restriction options that allow you to see less of the folks you don’t necessarily want to delete, but absolutely need a break from.
There have been quite a few posts imploring white people not to simply remove racists friends from their platform, but to instead speak up on their counterpart’s actions and call them out when they are wrong. I wondered if that was also required of me as I’m a Black person dealing with Black folks posting dangerous, anti-Black, pro-fascist content. The answer is no. Try to inform but you don’t have to indoctrinate, especially for folks that do not want to learn or are not ready to open their eyes to the work that is necessary.
Erykah Badu said it beautifully in a recent post that used her image to deliver a message she did not support. The original post said, “Don’t support no more rap music glorifying killing our own black people going forward because most of the rappers have not said shit, marched, spoke up or made a song about doing anything to these racist fools [taking] us out. We need music to stand up to this racism that’s happening now.”
Erykah reshared the original post, with an edit of her sentiments laying over the image, wherein she said, “I would never require an artist to have to MATCH my passion.” She followed up in the caption to further say, “Tho I understand the frustration in the sentiment of the author’s statement, it is a misdirection of energy. If the ‘rappers’ to whom this statement references are victims of the same society that fed their communities leftovers of capitalism and murder, then the author is requiring the ‘UN WELL’ to do ‘WELL’ things.” She goes on to say that “the talk of killing will stop when KILLING stops, just as the talk of LIBERATION will stop when there is no longer a need. I guess what I am saying is AIM YOUR GUNS AT THE RIGHT DIRECTION.” What I took from Badu was, not only is the intent to establish respectability politics dead wrong, it also means that for some of us, our work does not lie in trying to fight our folks to see things differently. This would be helpful to take into account especially when we are exhausted. Much of the time, our work needs to be done at the root - and much of the Black experience is just a symptom of the problem.
Set Boundaries with Yo’ White Friends. To each his own. I have been very in between on this. In many ways, I want to be left alone. All too often, when media has an uptick of content surrounding the murder of unarmed/innocent Black folks, and protests ensue, I seem to have an influx of white “friends” reaching out for dialogue and discussion. Over the years, I have come to digest that some (many) are not just exclusively checking in on my well-being; they are also checking in to confirm that they are “doing the right thing,” i.e not being racist and/or are still approved of by me as an ally. I could tell, because my white affiliates who do anti-racist, LGBTQ+ inclusive work on any other given day, didn’t slide in my DMs to “see how I was feeling.” It also left me feeling quite uncomfortable, as I understand that I have white people that genuinely care, want to do well, and want to learn, and I could not tell if they were reaching out to me to learn because they are genuinely interested and want to do this work beyond this given moment, or if because this is what grabbed their attention right now, and when the global shift is focused on something else like climate change, their activism for Black lives would shift with it. For this reason, or this conundrum rather, I made the decision not to exhaust myself. I would not unjustifiably question or assume the motives of my white counterparts, so likely if I had the feeling that the outreach was disingenuous or time-sensitive, it probably was. For my benefit and the consideration of other equally exhausted Black Folks, I promoted the act of saying, “No,” to our white friends/brand sponsors/employers. Many of my folks are empaths and so the idea of giving nothing is just not an option, even for myself. Here are some examples of ways that you can give without resenting your white counterpart and feeling like you’ve betrayed yourself:
If you are skeptical of their intentions, respect that feeling. You’re probably right about the space they’re coming from. It doesn’t mean you have to call them out, it just means that you shouldn’t gaslight yourself for red flags you see.
Say no if you don’t have the energy to teach.
Here are two examples in a corporate and social setting of how to respectfully decline:
Example 1:
White Friend: Can you tell me what I should read/who I should donate to/if this post is acceptable to publish?
Me, Black, Tired, Not in the mood: I am not in a space to make recommendations on this. (You can stop there, or you can continue.) I can share with you a page that I think is super informative and helpful, and you can go from there. I trust that you will make the right decision.
Example 2:
White Brand/Employer that has not previously done any activism work regarding the protection of Black Lives and or is not doing enough activism currently through their work: Can we use your image to promote our activation for BLM?/Can you please write a statement on our behalf?
You, not their damn pony: I do not feel comfortable with you using my likeness/with writing a statement on behalf of the company. (You can stop here, you can elaborate why, or you can offer an alternative.) As the current activism stands, I feel that more can be done to truly align and commit to the protection and advancement of Black folks through the brand. As the offer stands, it appears that the offer to help is only incentivized as people make purchases from the company, and this brand would not help exclusively off of goodwill and intentions. I would suggest exploring ways in which this company could make a difference without depending on the sales of its customers. Here are some other ways that I believe the company could best utilize their strengths to help: (insert your options here.)
Don’t let people exhaust you. Now is a great time, however, to leverage what you are seeking, whether that be rest, respect, or reparations.
Make Your Rest Part of Your Revolution. Some nights I have spent hours downloading media about the things I was already aware of, things I could not directly change, things I would watch in order to prompt myself and imagine what I would have done had I been able to make a difference. It’s trauma porn, it’s unhelpful, and it keeps me up at night. I cannot go back in time and be in Saint Paul, MN at the same time Floyd was. I can not go back in time and warn Breonna and her boyfriend of what was coming through that door. And no matter how many articles I read, I already knew that Rayshard deserved to live, and the American system of policing needs to be abolished. These things that keep me from resting, that increase my stress levels, also lead to an influx of cortisol levels, flight or flight mode, and I imagine they are the same things that lead to what kill so many of my people both directly and indirectly: stress and lack of true rest. Lack of sleep leads to the influx of stress and forgetfulness amongst other things. I understand I can’t sleep some nights because my mind is running. Our brain reminds us of painful memories to protect us, and I suppose as Black folk, I stay up at night scrolling, in hopes of tuning in, feeling more, changing something, and protecting us all, but that’s not the way to do it. Our rest is revolutionary.
Set a bedtime. I shut down social media by 10pm every night and I wait an hour after I wake up before I log on. I don't want the last thing I see at night to be a trigger warning about the deaths of folks who are not unlike me. The nightmares and the teeth grinding were going to come as is.
Take a day off. You do the work so many days out of the week. Take a moment or a few hours, or a day to check out of what taxes you the most.
Call out of work. Yea, I said it. Call in “Black.”
Be intentional about posting and engaging with content that is unrelated to your pain.
Find opportunities for joy, by doing your favorite restful thing. Take a bath, do nothing for 10 minutes, perform a body scan.
Although we are a macrocosm, we are individuals too. You cannot, and you need not, carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. It is not your job to atone for the sins that you did not commit. So much time is spent as a collective, doing the work in droves, protesting together, organizing together, speaking about our experiences as Black folks together, meditating together, and I think we forget the need to turn inward sometimes. Some things need to be done alone, internally, at the individual level. Be gentle with yourself, and patient. Recognize your privileges and your blessings. Although you are not unlike your brother, please be mindful of how much you can hold. While we all know there are thousands of things Black folks are not entitled to doing under the gaze of police and this American system (jogging, sleeping, shopping, showing our wallet, carrying a weapon, holding a bb gun, wearing a hoodie, being trans, having a vagina), some of us already maintain these notions in the back of our psyche, and so holding them at the forefront every moment of our lives does not allow us to truly live. Remember you are still here. Recognize the ways in which you are in spaces of privilege and blessings. You are still here. Fight the fight in the way you can and then rest and enjoy life because you deserve to. You are here. Say to yourself, “I cannot die with my brother in this moment, just like my brother has. He deserves my revolution.” We can only carry so much. So take some time to live as well, because joy is just as much part of the revolution.
Peace.
*folks - short for Black folks.
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Bria Brown is an entrepreneur with a focus in healing, resources, and joy. She owns an online wellness shop, Alkemical Healing Apothecary, and lives in New Jersey with her mate Sean, and their dog, Fox. You can reach her on Instagram @ancestorprayers.
