They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“In Bruce Springsteen’s music, not just in The River, I think about the romanticization of work and how that is reflected in America. Rather, for whom work is a necessary and sometimes painful burden of survival. One that comes with the shame of time spent away from loved ones, and a country that insists you aren’t working hard enough.”

This passage implicitly references the concept of the American Dream—the narrative that hard work can help one achieve one’s dreams. Abdurraqib alludes to the inaccessibility of this dream to many people of color, who face systemic disadvantages that prevent them from achieving their dreams and are then stereotyped negatively, leading to an incorrect narrative that they simply “aren’t working hard enough” (19).

“Hanging above Mike Brown’s memorial was a small paper sign. It read, in all capital letters: ‘THEY CAN’T KILL US UNTIL THEY KILL US.’”

The essay collection gets its name from this sign found at Brown’s memorial. By choosing this title, Abdurraqib makes it clear that this essay collection is more than just music criticism: It is a collection that focuses on the Black experience in America, especially within the #BlackLivesMatter movement. The use of the pronouns “they” and “us” creates community. “Us” encapsulates all Black people, united in their grief.

“No one during the show is touching, despite the themes being sensual, at the very least. I’m interested in the physical space bodies take up at times like these. The way we fold into each other when a slow jam works its way out of the speakers. But tonight, everyone is at least performing distance.”

The Weeknd’s show is extremely sexual and graphic, yet no one is entering anyone’s personal space. This disruption of personal space is something Abdurraqib has witnessed—and experienced—at live music events and in daily life. Yet at The Weeknd’s concert everyone is “performing distance,” implying that to feel included in this space, one must take on a persona—specifically, one that denies the need for love and meaningful intimacy.

“It is hard to hear the word ‘brotherhood’ without also thinking about the weight behind what it carries with it in this country and beyond. When I still hear and read the punk rock scene referred to as a ‘brotherhood,’ I think about what it takes to build a brotherhood in any space. Who sits at the outskirts or who sits at the bottom while the brotherhood dances oblivious and heavy at the top.”

On the surface, the word “brotherhood” implies community—an inclusive, familial space. However, this word takes on a darker connotation for Abdurraqib. Many racist organizations use the word brotherhood in their name (for example, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Brotherhood of Klans), and this connotation highlights the punk rock scene’s violence and racism toward Black people. Abdurraqib suggests that the punk rock scene sells itself as one inclusive community while actually allowing violence and discrimination toward some of its members.

“But, today, even though I am sad, my hands are still on the rope. I am making my best work when my hands are still on the rope, even if I’m not pulling back. Life is too long, despite the cliche. Too long, and sometimes too painful. But I imagine I have made it too far. I imagine, somewhere around some corner, the best part is still coming.”

The image of the rope works in two ways. First, it references the act of suicide. By still holding on to the rope, a person remains alive. Second, the rope references the history of lynching Black people in America, highlighting the deadly toll of the daily violence Black Americans face. Acknowledging this deep sadness and fear serves as an act of resistance, one that allows for hope of improvement.

“My friend Nora turned to the table and said, ‘Why do we think of grief as a collection of individual experiences anyway? Why don’t we just instead talk about grief as a thing that we’re all carrying and all trying to come to terms with?’

And I know, I know that may seem like what all of our missions may be, but I tell stories of the sadness of an individual death first and complete sadness of loss second. I have, in a lot of ways, convinced myself that more people will feel whatever I am asking them to feel if there is a name or a history to go with the body.”

Nora brings up Public Versus Private Grief, arguing that most grief is actually communal. Abdurraqib realizes that he focuses on grief for an individual—rather than a pattern of injustice—because he thinks it will make people pay more attention. This highlights the performative nature of certain forms of public grief, implying that it is easy to lose sight of what matters: the grief itself.

“That which does not kill you may certainly kill someone else. That which does not kill you may form a fresh layer of sadness on the shoulders of someone you do not know, but who still may need to press their ear to the same thing that told you everything was going to be all right when you didn’t feel like everything was going to be all right.”

There is no one simple way to grieve: Everyone has different levels of tolerance to pain. By using repetition throughout this passage, Abdurraqib creates an echo effect. This conveys that grief is at once personal and communal, felt by everyone but in different ways.

“It’s easy to convince people that you are really okay if they don’t have to actually hear what rattles you in the private silence of your own making. I sometimes imagine that this is what Pete was trying to say the whole time. Public performance as a way to hold yourself together until you could fall into what actually kept you alive in your secluded moments. By the time this summer was finally done with us, it all felt plastic. Like we were all playing the roles of someone else.”

Performativity and Fitting In can be a protective shield and lifeline: By not showing the public one’s true self, that vulnerable state remains intact. Abdurraqib’s diction in this passage—“rattle” and “plastic”—conveys that this public persona is hollow, shallow, and easily punctured in private.

“Once you realize that it’s all performance, the medicine goes down easier.”

Abdurraqib implies that accepting the performativity of much of human experience is necessary. Something can be “inauthentic” in certain respects yet still valuable. This is the case, Abdurraqib argues, of certain rappers’ and wrestlers’ performances of wealth.

“I, too, want to feel the heat with somebody or, at worst, I want to be a child of the heat’s eager production, the smoke that rises & dances thick in the air, a ghost over those who labor in our names & then become the ghosts themselves & it’s a shame our wings don’t arrive until after we’ve already raced off the cliff & met whatever waits below & it’s a shame to still have living hands & barely anything left worthy of touch.”

The use of the ampersand symbol creates a run-on sentence that supports the dreamy and enthusiastic tone of this essay. By delaying the sentence’s ending, Abdurraqib allows Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson to live on in the text. Additionally, the run-on quality implies that the writer is telling readers all of his secrets as quickly as he can, making the tone more intimate and personal.

“Like many of the Black men who helped raise me, Ice Cube is complicated, sometimes problematic, and still often endearing. I fight internally with this, the same way I fight internally with the Black spaces we all glorify: the misogyny of the barbershop, the respectability politics of the cookout. I come back to Ice Cube because he embodies this, too. The full scope of every Black man I know and have grown with, including myself, is incomplete without our emotional and social failures. I cringe at the occasional Ice Cube interview, I cringe at the occasional remark from my barber, and I value both of these men for what they have given to a world that I am lucky enough to share with them, despite our failings.”

No human being is perfect and everyone is “incomplete without […] emotional and social failures”: These contradictions are precisely what paint a full and complete picture of a person, according to Abdurraqib. Insisting on this complexity is particularly important in the case of Black men, whom the media frequently reduces to one—often violent—incident. Abdurraqib stresses that this leads to missing out on these men’s value and knowledge.

“What I’m saying is that I’ve been thinking a lot about Black anger lately, and what we do and don’t do with it. The relief that people have when a protest centering on Black lives aligns with their ideas of peace.”

Black anger and rage are often misinterpreted as violent and dangerous, which can force Black people to go out of their way not to act out their rage—often originating in grief—in public. White people feel “relief” when Black protests perform in a way that makes them comfortable, in essence denying these protesters their agency.

“How, even then, on a day where she was exhausted, I remember walking into the store with her. She was not smiling, but kind to the white man behind the register, offering short but polite responses to his questions. When handing her back change, he looked at my mother and said, ‘Everything okay? You seem so mad today.’

And I can’t be sure, but I think I remember a smile, forcing its way along the edges of her mouth.”

Abdurraqib’s mother is polite, but the white cashier still accuses her of being angry for not performing in a way that he accepts. In response, she does not choose to perform happiness; rather, a smile “forces” itself onto her face. This disembodied smile implies that while Abdurraqib’s mother may comply or make the white man feel comfortable on the surface, it’s not how she really feels.

“I’m saying that I wish I knew what joys could be unlocked by tragedy before my mother died, but I’m thankful to have learned it shortly after she was gone. No brass band played for her as she was taken into the cemetery, no dance spilled out in her name. But in the summer of 1997, I learned what it is to feel someone everywhere.”

When Abdurraqib’s mother died, there was no public expression of grief like there is in New Orleans, where people break out in dance and song while burying their dead. However, Abdurraqib realizes that this grief is still public in a sense: He feels his mother “everywhere,” but this feeling is bittersweet rather than merely sorrowful, as it allows him to experience her presence after her death.

“I think about that expectation, to hold off injustice with one arm while still consistently offering forgiveness with the other. I think about how often that is what Blackness in America amounts to.”

This image emphasizes the contradictions of being Black in America: One must constantly be on alert for injustice and racism while simultaneously forgiving those who hurt you. That this is an “expectation” rather than a choice highlights that Black people are expected to perform in a specific way. It also suggests a relationship between the two seemingly opposing acts, as grace under pressure can be a survival mechanism for Black people.

“What people are asking in this exercise is never about where I’m from. The question they’re asking is ‘why doesn’t your name fit comfortably in my mouth?’”

Abdurraqib considers his cultural identity as a Muslim man through this example of an anti-Muslim microaggression. The image of Abdurraqib’s name in someone else’s mouth also hints at a wish to consume or swallow him, evoking both the questioner’s entitlement and their desired erasure of Abdurraqib’s Muslim identity.

“Knowing at such a young age that to be a Black woman in America is, in a way, to feel like you will survive until you decide to stop surviving.”

This passage addresses intersectionality and the struggle of Black women in America. It highlights the tenacity of Black women but also implies that perseverance is not a choice for them; rather, they are forced to be strong at a young age and cannot stop without risking their own survival.

“It is a luxury to be able to tear your gaze away from something; to only be made aware of old and consistent blood by a newer shedding of blood, It is a luxury to see some violence as terror and other violence as necessary. It is a luxury to be unafraid and analyze the very real fear of others.”

This passage explores how public grief at a distance comes with a level of privilege. Someone who can analyze and dissect a tragedy most likely was not individually affected by that tragedy. Additionally, this passage highlights how public grieving can desensitize people to or belittle the lived experience of the ones most affected by the event.

“I thought about my pants, now stained by the grass, and how much they cost me. How much the car cost me. How much it cost me to get here, to this college, out of a neighborhood just five miles away that no one on this block would venture to. But I mostly thought about how I perhaps owned nothing. Not even my own hands, pressed behind my back.”

This passage focuses on the recurring motif of stained clothing as a marker of grief and trauma. This segues into a discussion of whether Abdurraqib even owns his own body, highlighting that being Black in America means being constantly subject to destruction or control by the state.

“At a protest, a white person is all emotion, pulling at his shirt and shouting into a megaphone to a crowd of young people, mostly Black. And everyone is jumping and pointing at the house on fire without considering there are people inside.

I struggle with this, the public grief by white people over Black death.”

This is another example of white people’s performance of antiracism and their co-opting of Black spaces. The white person can act aggressively and angrily in public without facing any consequences—an inequity in and of itself. Moreover, the man is speaking to a crowd of predominately Black people, presumably telling them how to process their own lived experiences in a show of white privilege and entitlement. Additionally, it appears that the white person is all talk because he talks about the issue without taking any action, implying that this truly is just a public performance.

“But above my desk now, a picture of Barack Obama, surrounded. Rappers on every side of him, dressed however they chose to dress. Rappers with their honest songs about the people who live and die in places often used as political talking points, standing proud in front of their proud president. All of those smiling Black people in the Oval Office. Miles away from a past where none of them, I imagine, ever thought they’d get to make it this far.”

This passage demonstrates the power of publicly and privately rewriting narratives. Historically, Black people have been excluded from the White House, appearing there only in some kind of labor or service capacity. Obama’s tenure in the White House rewrote this narrative, creating a more inclusive place. Rappers in particular had been unwelcome at the White House, primarily because of narratives about them being dangerous or promoting drug use. The last sentence implies a private rewriting of narratives to correspond to the public rewriting, highlighting the gap between the rappers’ current experiences and what they once believed was possible.

“The white kids at my public school in the late ’90s would complain about The Source Magazine, how it had Black rappers on the cover every month. When can I see someone on a magazine that looks like me? they would ask. Whenever I tell that part of the story, people can’t stop laughing.”

The desire for accurate media representation of Black experiences is a recurring theme throughout the text. Abdurraqib highlights the irony of his white friends bemoaning the lack of representation of white rappers, given that the media defaults to portraying white people in nuanced and complex ways while reducing Black people to negative and harmful stereotypes. Additionally, Abdurraqib’s white friends desire to see a white rapper—someone who represents them—on the cover of a magazine dedicated to a historically Black genre. This presents another example of white people co-opting the Black experience.

“So few of my crushes speak back. I am cultivating my comfort with unanswered desires, and it is going well. I have room for so much more. I say a prayer. I fall in love.”

Abdurraqib uses lyrics from Whitney Houston’s hit song “How Will I Know” to emphasize his growing optimism regarding and love of the world around him. By emphasizing that “so few of [his] crushes speak back” (283), Abdurraqib highlights that he is crushing not just on people but on ideas and places. He is opening his life up, even though it leaves him with “unanswered desires.”