"Let 'Em Know" that "Hard Times Require Furious Dancing"

The connection between T.I. and Alice Walker for Such a Time As This

Photo by Sthembile Nobathana on Unsplash

I, like many Black folk in Atlanta and beyond, have been enjoying Tip “T.I.” Harris’ new song “Let ‘Em Know,” the hit single from his forthcoming last studio album. On social media, I have watched everyone from elders to elder millennials and everyone in between, vibing out to this song full of Atlanta and other nostalgia. It harkens back to a time when clubs lined the streets of certain blocks in ATL, and a good time could be had without (much) impending political doom. There has been a lot of wishing for those times, for a bygone era like 2016, before Trump’s first term in office. But we are no longer in those times, what we have is this time where every day we are assailed by the latest machinations delivered by a megalomaniac leader and his fleshly imps who get custom-made Hitler apparel to lead the charge on killing not one but three people in the first month of this year—Keith Porter, Jr.(please say his name more), Renee Good, and most recently Alex Pretti—and for detaining 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, all with impunity. We have watched Minnesota fight back against this insidious power, and many across the nation and world have joined in the fight. Many more are figuring out what they ought to do and where their hands might be best laid to the plow, such as everyone participating in the Friday, January 30, Nationwide Strike against ICE. But just about everyone concerned with liberation, justice, fairness, and due process is also trying to maintain some semblance of sanity while existing in a world that makes them want to holler. So what do we do? This is where T.I. and Alice Walker come in.

As I have been sitting with everything over the course of this month, the last week or so has sparked some joy as I have watched many get activated in their bodies at the sound of T.I.’s signature voice and flow. And I do not believe that activation is for nothing or simply for the moment of listening to that song for pleasure, or, if T.I. is not your favorite, Jill Scott’s “Don’t Play.” No, I actually believe the activation is necessary for our souls, for our bodies to keep ourselves intact, and is a kind of kinesthetic bread for the journey ahead of us. Simply put, dancing to these songs or any other is not mutually exclusive to our struggle for justice, peace, and equity; it is necessary for it, maybe a prerequisite to it, because as Alice Walker taught us, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing.

Last year, in a post on Facebook that I hid probably because I made it while tipsily dancing at one of my favorite Atlanta spots, and I worried it didn’t make sense, I said:

“There is something that the ignorant, phobic, ist- laden people cannot take from US and that is the rhythm and movement of our bodies that symbolizes a freedom that cannot be withdrawn or taken from us.

In moments like these I understand that what “they” are mad about is never feeling free in their bodies and I’m thankful that I’ve found liberation and simulations of freedom in mine, so much so that I don’t worry about stifling someone else’s freedom. Ever since I found freedom in my body I’ve spent much less time, worrying about people who haven’t found that. Instead I focus my life and work on showing instead of telling and chastising. That’s freedom work. So I’m telling you this, for those of us who believe in freedom we cannot rest BUT we also cannot stop dancing. Find where you can dance and experience liberation and moments of freedom.”

When I wrote that, I was in the middle of a darkened room full of people. We were singing at the top of our lungs, dancing like no one and everyone was watching, and knocking back drinks like water. What I remember about that night, January 25 at 11:48 PM, five days after Trump’s inauguration into office for a second time, is that in that space, bodies undulating to the waves of 808s, we were free. We Swag Surfed as a family, we Knucked and Bucked like our adversaries were in the room, we Dutty Wine’d, we did it all, and as we did I felt something in my body besides the fear and dread of white Christian nationalists supremacists with no rhythm, no blues, no beat, no nothing compared to us because they not like us. It was from that feeling that I penned the status update above. Reading it over a year later, while remaining in the same condition, it still resonates. And this year, I add unto these words typed with blood on the dancefloor-soaked fingers, the following from Walker’s preface in Hard Times Require Furious Dancing—emphasis my own,

I am the youngest of eight siblings. Five of us have died. I share losses, health concerns, and other challenges common to the human condition, especially in these times of war, poverty, environmental devastation, and greed that are quite beyond the most creative imagination. Sometimes it all feels a bit too much to bear. Once a person of periodic deep depressions, a sign of mental suffering in my family that affected each sibling differently, I have matured into someone I never dreamed I would become: an unbridled optimist who sees the glass as always full of something. It may be half full of water, precious in itself, but in the other half there’s a rainbow that could exist only in the vacant space.

I have learned to dance.

It isn’t that I didn’t know how to dance before; everyone in my community knew how to dance, even those with several left feet. I just didn’t know how basic it is for maintaining balance. That Africans are always dancing (in their ceremonies and rituals) shows an awareness of this. It struck me one day, while dancing, that the marvelous moves African Americans are famous for on the dance floor came about because the dancers, especially in the old days, were contorting away various knots of stress. Some of the lower-back movements handed down to us that have seemed merely sensual were no doubt created after a day’s work bending over a plow or hoe on a slave driver’s plantation.

Wishing to honor the role of dance in the healing of families, communities, and nations, I hired a local hall and a local band and invited friends and family from near and far to come together, on Thanksgiving, to dance our sorrows away, or at least to integrate them more smoothly into our daily existence. The next generation of my family, mourning the recent death of a mother, my sister-in-law, created a spirited line dance that assured me that, though we have all encountered our share of grief and troubles, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat — no small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one.

Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is the proof.

Whether it is through T.I. or Jill, Soca or Samba, dancing reminds us that we are alive and that we have something to live for. It is the dance that sustains us in, between, and after the hard times. Dance from many traditions and even disciplines (more on this one day soon) has sustained me through every season of my life. Most recently, having become a student of the cultural art, form, and style of Afro-Brazilian dance known as Samba, I shared with some of my classmates that it is this dance that has kept me buoyant during a season of uncertainty. Without Samba over the course of the last year, I would have just been burdened and heavy-laden with no somatic and, arguably, soulish relief. With Samba, I have been relieved, able to shake things off, kick things out, and feel myself thriving in a world that wants me to be satisfied with surviving on scraps. It proves once again that dancing is necessary. My thriving, nay my flourishing, in these hard times requires furious dancing. I am proof.

So make room for the dance, these hard times require it.