You Are Your Best Thing

When a six-year-old Black child comes home from school wishing they were white, something profound breaks in the parent's heart. This moment, experienced by one contributor, captures a devastating reality: even in kindergarten, children are already absorbing messages about their worth based on the color of their skin. The child had been told by a classmate that "brown kids aren't as fun" to play with, and in that instant, shame began its insidious work.

This collection of voices emerges from a recognition that traditional conversations about healing and vulnerability often miss the unique terrain that Black Americans must navigate. While everyone experiences shame and seeks belonging, the Black experience carries additional layers of complexity rooted in historical trauma, systemic oppression, and daily microaggressions. These stories reveal how vulnerability becomes both a pathway to healing and a potentially dangerous exposure in a world that too often punishes Black authenticity. Through raw honesty and courageous storytelling, these contributors illuminate how shame operates differently when your very existence is politicized, and how resilience must be cultivated in the face of persistent dehumanization.

Jason Reynolds remembers the moment his grandfather's life changed forever. The amputation came suddenly, turning a man who had once walked rows of collard greens and steered tractors into someone confined to a hospital bed. The thirteen-year-old boy watched his oak tree of a grandfather become vulnerable, footless and finite. That same year brought another devastating blow when his grandfather died, marking the end not just of a life, but of their family's ritualistic journeys to the South and the stories that connected them to their roots.

Years later, Reynolds found himself at another crossroads when his mother faced life-threatening surgery. The day of her operation was also the day he was supposed to sign his first publishing contract. At twenty-two, he made a choice that would haunt him for over a decade: he left his mother's bedside to pursue his dream, rationalizing that Black boys don't get such opportunities often. The surgery went well, but the shame of abandoning his mother in her most vulnerable moment became a weight he carried silently for years.

The stories we tell ourselves about our choices often become the stories that shape our identity. Reynolds' experience reveals how early trauma can create patterns of self-protection that later manifest as shame. His grandfather's sudden vulnerability in the face of white medical professionals, followed by his own abandonment of his mother during crisis, illustrates how fear of losing control can drive us to make decisions that contradict our deepest values. The silence we maintain around these moments often intensifies their power over us, creating interior cages that limit our capacity for authentic connection.

Laverne Cox traces her family's trauma back to her great-grandfather, a freedman in early 1900s Alabama who took a dead cow from the road to feed his hungry family. When white people tracked him down and imprisoned him for theft, he was sold into forced labor on a plantation years after emancipation was supposed to have freed him. Her grandfather was born into this modern slavery, beaten to make him work, carrying wounds that would echo through generations.

This historical trauma manifested in Cox's grandfather as domestic violence against his wife and children. He became, in Cox's words, "a son of a bitch" who channeled his own pain into harming those he was supposed to protect. The cycle continued, creating what Cox recognizes as intergenerational trauma that lives not just in family practices but in their very genes. Today, as a Black trans woman navigating Hollywood, Cox still feels the weight of this inheritance every time she leaves her house.

The armor required for survival can become both protection and prison. Cox's story illuminates how historical violence creates defensive strategies that persist across generations, even when the immediate threat has changed. The hypervigilance required to navigate a world hostile to Black trans women connects directly to her ancestor's need for survival on a plantation. Understanding trauma as both personal and historical allows us to see our struggles not as individual failings but as natural responses to systemic violence, opening pathways toward healing that honor both our pain and our remarkable endurance.

The mothers of Tracey Lewis-Giggetts' childhood church were beautiful and mysterious, their cataracts-clouded eyes holding stories they would never fully tell. These elder women raised hands in worship and released melodies heavy with longing for a freedom they'd never quite attained. Yet these same women became arbiters of shame, throwing scarves over young women's exposed legs and whispering about single mothers with "too many babies." They invested in a theology rooted in patriarchy while wielding considerable power behind the scenes.

Lewis-Giggetts herself carried the weight of sexual abuse as a child, sent away from home to "keep the family together" while her trauma remained unspoken within their faith tradition. The church that should have been a sanctuary instead became a place where silence was enforced and vulnerability was punished. Her healing would eventually require deconstructing the faith she'd inherited and building something new that could hold both her spiritual needs and her full humanity.

Sacred spaces can become sites of profound harm when they prioritize institutional preservation over human flourishing. The contradiction Lewis-Giggetts exposes in Black church culture reflects broader tensions between survival strategies and authentic healing. When communities have been forced to present perfection to survive, creating space for vulnerability requires dismantling not just personal shame but cultural systems that equate suffering with righteousness. True spiritual healing emerges when we can embrace mystery over certainty and love over control.

Austin Channing Brown describes watching horror movies with her husband, finding comfort in their familiar pattern: joy followed by terror, safety shattered by violence. This dynamic mirrors her experience as a Black mother watching her toddler wear a hooded jacket, suddenly seeing Trayvon Martin in her child's reflection. The foreboding that grips her isn't irrational fear but a learned response to living in a country where Black joy is often interrupted by racial violence.

Yet Brown refuses to let this foreboding steal her capacity for love. She chooses to kiss her son's head and let her heart swell with joy over his fascination with zippers and pockets. She draws on the deep wells of Black spiritual tradition that declares "this joy I have, the world didn't give it to me, and the world can't take it away." Her community has learned that even the darkest human evil cannot snuff out their experience of laughter, love, good food, family legacy, and creative expression.

The cultivation of joy in the face of persistent threat represents one of the most radical acts of resistance available to oppressed communities. Brown's story reveals how Black Americans have had to develop a sophisticated understanding of vulnerability that acknowledges real danger while refusing to surrender their humanity. The phrase "joy is an act of resistance" takes on deeper meaning when we understand it not as denial of pain but as insistence on wholeness despite systems designed to fragment us.

These voices weave together a tapestry of Black experience that challenges conventional understanding of vulnerability and resilience. From childhood trauma to historical violence, from broken faith systems to radical joy, these stories reveal how shame operates differently when your identity itself is under constant assault. Yet they also demonstrate the extraordinary capacity for healing that emerges when people refuse to carry burdens that were never theirs to bear.

The path forward requires both individual healing and collective transformation. It means creating spaces where Black humanity can breathe freely, where vulnerability is met with compassion rather than exploitation, and where the full spectrum of Black experience can be honored. These stories remind us that resilience isn't about becoming invulnerable but about maintaining our capacity for connection, creativity, and love despite systems designed to crush our spirits. In sharing their truth, these contributors offer not just their own liberation but a roadmap for anyone seeking to break free from the chains of internalized shame and step into their full humanity.