“Stay Black And Die”: We've been saying "I don't gotta do nothing but stay Black and die" forever. The line comes from Langston Hughes's 1930 poem "Necessity," in which he writes about work, the high cost of housing, and capitalism. How we embraced this expression says a lot about our resistance and the undying spirit of self-determination we've always had.
When we consider Hughes' ultimate truths, our Blackness and the inevitability of death, it's a liberating refusal of the ways of being and doing that systems of capitalism and patriarchy have convinced us are necessary for us to be worthy.
Watch Ya Mouth: Our elders have long taught us to be careful with our words. The wrong words could lead to a feud or a family curse. This crucial warning, no matter the context, is a nod to an ancestral belief in the sacredness of language.
Historically, we've passed down everything orally, from songs to recipes. Knowledgeable griots carried the culture on their tongues, preserving our most powerful stories.
We've got this one beautiful Black life. We don't gotta do nothing but stay Black and die— but we do get to choose how we speak our truths, the history we preserve, and how we resist anti-Black systems that try to demand both our conformity and silence.