Ohhhh By "Soft Life" You Meant Abandoning Community?

Don't let these creature comforts distract you!

What A Year

2024 was a YEAR, wasn’t it? In July the Olympics had me screaming “USA! USA!” Exceptionally out of character for me. Not to worry, the presidential election put me right back on mute.

America’s involvement in the Palestinian genocide never wavered. It was definitely one of the central driving points of the election. Along with other domestic issues: immigration, DEI policy, inflation. I mean why the hell does it cost $5 million a day to stay alive??? What do you mean a jar of Miracle Whip gone cost me $8.99? Dear Lord, if you hear my cries we need an intervention STAT!

Black women have been leading the charge on educating people about these issues for centuries while simultaneously working to provide for families and communities alike. We is tireddddd. Rightfully so! The onus of creating solutions to problems we are victims of has been on Black women for far too long. We deserve a break, we really do.

Vacations.

Nails did, hair did, lashes did.

Nice wine and organic food.

A focus on holding and healing the self.

That’s the Soft Life™ everyone’s been talking about. Mmmm sounds nice, don’t it? And it is! As long as the camera’s shot stays zoomed in on you. The wider the lens, the more murky it becomes.

What about the hotel staff at your resort?

Who’s your nail tech and how does she afford child care?

What’s the wage of the grape harvesters for your wine?

How much self-reflection can be done before you’re just staring in a mirror?

When you find the answers leave a comment.

My Story

When I was 22 I left the U.S. for London. People always ask me why, the easy answer: I went for graduate school. The real answer: I just went through a breakup and being in different cities wasn’t enough…I needed to be across the Atlantic. The newness of living in a different country was inevitable, people were blowing cigarette smoke in my face, I couldn’t get a good meal (the rumors are true, London is not a food town). Little did I know the real adventure wouldn’t begin until I was kicked out of student housing with nowhere to go. After couch surfing for a few months, we ran out of people to leech off. The housing crisis in London is REAL, we were S.O.L. So we did the most logical thing – we lived in abandoned buildings. Yes, that’s right, we started squatting, a group of about twelve friends. There was always running water and electricity…and the eminent threat of eviction.

To clarify, squatting has a special and specific history in the UK. From the 70s, Black and Brown people used squatting as a genuine alternative to unfair housing practices. “If you won’t give me water, heat, electricity, a roof over my head then I’ll have it by force!” As they should! Shelter is a necessity for all people and the relationship between landlords and renters is absolutely egregious, rooted in the exploitation of the needy.

As time went on, the government sided with the landlords by cracking down on squatting. While people were once allowed to live in unoccupied residence, in 2012 they changed the law to only allow squatters access to unoccupied non-residential buildings. This meant I was living in office buildings, abandoned schools, even an unused church once. That was wild cause it meant the Church of England had to take us to court to make us homeless…go figure. We was getting it in where we could live it. The longest we stayed in one place was seven months, but I’ve known crews that were able to stay put in a building for upwards of two years! Regardless of how stable things feel, the dark cloud of eviction is always there.

This was not a fear I was familiar with. I grew up in a financially stable situation, both my parents had multiple degrees and access to steady work. Anything I desired, within reason, I received. Like the time I cried to get a Nintendo DS because my classmates had them. Just spoiled to the bone, gotdamnit! My parents were home owners. The idea that I could just be kicked out of my home was a far reach from my reality. I was BIRTHED into the Soft Life™. My parents had disposable income and they was for sure throwing it away on me.

Selective Discomfort

Squatting taught me about community care in ways I could not otherwise imagine. Of course, I’ve experienced all sorts of traumas because of my queerness and Blackness and womaness or some combination of the three, but I had yet to experience the poignant traumas of not having secured my essential human needs. Food, water, shelter ain’t never been a thang for me. When it became one, the people around me showed up and showed out. Squatting effectively turned me away from the soft life.

When you first go into a building you have to secure the doors from the inside. You have to, essentially, lock yourself in so people outside cannot simply walk in. This means when someone leaves or comes home, someone must be available to open the door. Someone must be home at all times and someone must be awake at night to open the door if people are out. I would be lying if I said there weren’t times I waited for someone else to get the door in the early hours, but sometimes you have an early shift and must leave at 6am. I would want someone there to let me out. I don’t want to get out of bed, but leaving that task for one person constantly is unfair, so we make sure to coordinate who’s up the night before. We create community care by allowing different people to rest and having others up to get the door. When that balance is uneven, tension builds and a conflict is bound to arise.

The soft life I was born into detached me from community. I knew people who came up like me, but I was not deeply connected to any of them. My parents tried to connect me to meaningful community, but the world they created for me distorted what was actually important. Was going to college the meaning? What about a well-paying job? Was being first in my class where I’d find purpose?

It wasn’t until I encountered genuine struggle that I was able to gauge meaningful energy output for those around me. The people I was around taught me what was worth fighting for and what wasn't. I developed discernment in ways I wouldn’t have developed in a world curated solely around my comfort.

Hard Rock Sharpens Knives

Fighting against the world is TIRING! If you’ve experienced it, you don’t need me to tell you that.

The Soft Life™ is appealing. I’m not finna act like I don’t get it. If all you’ve known is struggle, you wanna get away from it. If all you’ve known is comfort, struggle feels like you’re dying. But…we’ve got to remember the world’s systems run off oppressing people. The struggle of others is the primary fuel for our comforts. For every person that climbs out of strife, there’s plenty slipping into it and a world of people that been there from the jump and remain. Squatting showed me how important it is to be available for those in a position you once occupied. There was a network of people who weren’t squatting that helped us with maintaining the building, eviction support, whatever else. They were always there.

Comfort is addicting and people experiencing addiction will go to harsh ends to get that high. The responsibility to maintain others’ comfort does not disappear once you’re not tasked with doing it. Gaining the resources to experience comfort and then ditching your former responsibilities places more weight on someone who doesn’t yet hold those resources. We make it harder for our communities when we’re only focused on our own comfort.

I understand everyone has not come from the privilege I experienced. Most Black women did not grow up with the financial resources I was afforded. For that, they deserve rest and I am not here to police what that looks like. However, we must remember: in our rest we recover so we’re more able to continue the difficult work. The more hands there are to carry the weight, the lighter it becomes. The weight of the world may have been on your shoulders at one point, but as you rejuvenate your body, mind, and spirit, seek out community that is there to hold you. Just as importantly, find community that YOU are willing to hold when necessary.

A break does not last a lifetime. While you rest, I will keep watch, and when the sun rises I’ll have my time to relax while you awaken. As night falls, we take turns again.

Softness is necessary, but it cannot be forever. It is the hard surfaces that sharpen us, allowing us to be more efficient tools for the justice and liberation of us all. How you think Black women became so amazing? It’s the blunt force trauma of our experiences that gave us the utility of a swiss army knife. It is harsh and unfair, but as long as we are molded in this way, by these means, let’s utilize our gifts to demolish and rebuild together. With enough of us we run a smooth engine.

Plus, we’ll have plenty of sweet dreams to tell when we wake in the morning.

~ Carma <3

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