Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

by Tricia Hersey

In order for a capitalist system to thrive, our false beliefs in productivity and labor must remain. We have internalized its teachings and become zombie-like in Spirit and exhausted in body.

The Rest Is Resistance framework also does not believe in the toxic idea that we are resting to recharge and rejuvenate so we can be prepared to give more output to capitalism.

We must slowly unravel daily to understand that our liberation, freedom, and everything we need is already within us. It doesn’t matter how much money we make, how much time we can get off work, and how many vacations we take. What matters is that in our hearts and souls we have decided to refuse and not wait until we have enough or have the perfect number of external things for our rest to be approved by the larger system.

I know that if I never check another item off my to-do list, I am still worthy and loved by God and my Ancestors.

I love the idea and concept of simply existing and just being for Black folks. The idea of “you gotta be better than those before you,” Black excellence, and the never-ending cycle to be an inspiration and “model” is tiring, unsustainable, and steeped in white supremacy, respectability politics, and wrecks our self-esteem as Black folks.

As long as we refuse to address fully the place of love in struggles for liberation, we will not be able to create a culture of conversion where there is a mass turning away from an ethic of domination.”

We are resting not to do more and to come back stronger and more productive for a capitalist system.

Our exhaustion is leading us down the path of destruction. Our exhaustion will not lead us to liberation. Nothing can come from exhaustion but more exhaustion and more toxicity and terror. The time to rest is now.