Joy is our most powerful counternarrative and has the capacity to decolonize imaginations.
Black joy invites our sadness and struggle into the conversation of happiness, not as an achievement of some utopic state but as a process of becoming intimately present with moments. We do not experience life in terms of "good" or "bad" but in terms of justice or injustice. Freedom or slavery. Joy is a methodology of the oppressed and a liberating force to be reckoned with.
I encourage a discussion of joy and how we come to experience it. Black joy is the courage to heal. Here is a list poem that serves as an offering:
What is your joy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter with #joyis.
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Aja Monet is an internationally established poet, performer, singer, songwriter, educator, and human rights advocate. She has two books of poetry; Inner-City Chants and Cyborg Cyphers. Visit her site, follow her on Twitter @aja_monet, and see more of her performance poetry here.
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This Poem Perfectly Captures Black Joy