Rihanna’s “Anti” is bumping — or perhaps it’s Fetty Wap’s “Entice Queen.” Obama remains to be in workplace. Issa Rae is on our screens. And whereas a number of the women are donning both shiny wigs or rocking curly manes that odor like shea butter with their bandage clothes and over-the-knee boots, the fellas are stepping out in ripped biker denims and peacoats whereas all of us pose for mean-mug selfies that may, definitely, be filtered and uploaded inside seconds.
The yr is 2016, and it’s lit.
Beyoncé has us in formation. Drake simply desires one dance. We’re vibing to Ok-Dot’s “untitled unmastered” or letting Kaytranada’s trance-inducing beats information us by way of rooftop brunches, if not The Weeknd, or Future. Later, we come right down to Solange or Frank Ocean like a gentle touchdown. Our viral slang is exhibiting up on T-shirts, cellphone circumstances, and nails so long as daggers. Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” has us swooning in theaters with an outline of affection between Black males that feels each tender and revolutionary. Everybody swears they’re studying Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad” or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.”
And the world remains to be obsessed, perhaps much more so, with rapping founding fathers reimagined as folks of colour. Influencers are making extra financial institution than bankers. There are strains wrapped round blocks for rainbow bagels. Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Daryl Homer, Carmelo Anthony, and different Black athletes are making us proud on the Summer season Olympics in Rio. A celeb couple—who will finally turn into identified for serving to different celebs of their circle get engaged—ties the knot. And the Blacksonian, devoted to defending our tradition, opens its doorways in Washington, D.C.
Is that this yr of peak millennial younger maturity an ideal yr? No. Removed from it.
A actuality TV star is working for president, summoning among the nation’s ugliest demons. #OscarsSoWhite. Kanye West, nonetheless married to Kim Kardashian, is battling Taylor Swift over a misogynistic lyric. There’s protest footage on our feeds in between “Hotline Bling” memes and “Dem Thrones” jokes, in between no matter drama Issa and Molly have gotten themselves into.
Black Lives Matter, one thing we’ve at all times identified, however one thing we now should beg the world to consider—or perhaps it isn’t begging. Possibly it’s a requirement.
Philando Castile, however Black Lives Matter.
Alton Sterling, however Black Lives Matter.
So many Black our bodies. A lot visibility of us, our ache, our deaths, our violence, but in addition our music, our artwork, our maternal well being disaster, our hair, our writing, our tradition. Prince dies. The truth TV star wins.
Extra protests.
And but, someway, we’re nonetheless on fleek.
It’s what we do. We’ve at all times accomplished it. Even when the nation is at its cruelest, Black folks discover a solution to preserve transferring and never simply surviving, however creating. Constructing. Flexing. Loving. Laughing. Turning ache into model, grief into language, rage into rhythm.
Ten years later, you’ll assume again on 2016, and what would possibly strike you most is how triumphant and terrifying it was all on the similar time. How rapidly the largest cultural moments got here and went. Artists age. Artists die. And within the nostalgia, you would possibly notice that historical past ought to be remembered the way in which folks ought to be: fully. The great, the dangerous, and the ugly. As a result of if we don’t, we are going to by no means study. We’ll by no means get off the experience.
However for a few of us? Those who rushed into the 2010s filled with hope and goals for our adulthoods, it’ll simply be good to recollect.
