Post-Traumatic

by Chantal V. Johnson

“Gay people cut their families off all the time.” “No. We get cut out of our families.” “That’s right. I’m sorry, you’re right.” “The Black family is under attack enough as it is,” Jane added. The air was sucked out of the room then. Allusions to racial solidarity will do that. Why was Jane being so deterministic about this? “So there’s just no consequences for bad behavior in The Black Family?” “I’m just saying that the extreme step, of giving up on your family altogether? It seems more like something white people do. And it makes sense, they have the privilege to do so. They don’t have our history of oppression. Family and, like, the church, were the only reliable structures Black people had for over a hundred years,” Jane said.