“Unfortunately, she exists in a long tradition of Black activist women who die impoverished, who die sick and alone and scared, because we love an activist until they need something.”
– Mikki Kendall
There is a long tradition of Black women fighting for social justice issues, raising awareness, and essentially spending their lives working to create a better world. Too often they die in abject poverty, alone and forgotten—but not before their final years are spent struggling with health issues, often a result of the toxic combination of racism and lack of resources. And then only to be remembered and celebrated upon their deaths, when it costs nothing to honor them.
In recent years and months I have found myself thinking often of this sick tradition as I have flirted with health issues that only intensified as the stressors of my work threatened to overtake me. Those thoughts reached their apex in recent months when I found myself overcome with an almost debilitating exhaustion. While I am thankfully on the other side of that exhaustion, it served as a long overdue alarm.
An alarm that made it clear that I needed to make some changes in my life—the biggest change being that I am committed to honoring my personal limits and centering myself first. In the middle of a world grappling with genocide in real time, untold inequity, and plain injustice, it may seem tone-deaf for me to loudly declare that I am centering myself. Or maybe it won’t when I remind you that as a 51-year-old Black woman, I have been doing social justice and change work for close to 30 years now as a career.
From my early days as an AmeriCorp Vista to working with sex workers seeking help to working with the unhoused and then launching into the trenches of full-time anti-racism work, I have been doing the work. Underpaid, overworked, at times with no benefits, and even now with no retirement plan. Twenty years ago, when I was married to a man who made significantly more than me, I didn’t worry about these things. Though now as a twice-divorced 50-something woman, it keeps me up many nights—wondering if an early death will save me from a horrible old age since I most certainly will not live with dignity or grace once I can no longer work. I will almost certainly struggle to eat, stay housed, and have medications.
Lest you think I am being extreme or this is hyperbole, I present to you Barbara Smith. Barbara Smith was a member of the Combahee River Collective. Smith was a leader in establishing and defining the field of Black Women’s Studies. She published work that introduced for the first time close textual analysis of Black fiction that included gender and sexuality as an analytical lens. You almost certainly have encountered Smith’s work directly or indirectly. Her mark on the world is and was indelible, the foundation for pivotal and intersectional work, including Black Liberation.
Unfortunately, a lifetime of commitment to liberation meant no pension for Barbara. When she retired in 2017, a group created the People’s Pension to ensure that Barbara could age with the dignity and respect she deserves. I know this because I am currently a patron of The Smith Caring Circle that helps to provide her with an extremely modest level of support and which, in my opinion, is criminally underfunded given the impact of her work.
In many ways, Barbara Smith is one of the lucky ones; she is getting some level of meager support. Unlike Zora Neale Hurston, who literally died penniless in a welfare home. Yet she is celebrated and quoted but few—other than other Black women—probably think about how she died and what she sacrificed.
Ours is a society that takes from Black women with little concern for our emotional, mental, physical, or material needs.
This was all driven home recently with the death of a beloved comrade and sista, Shafiqah Hudson. She was better known on the streets of social media as Sassycrass. If you were a part of Tumblr and Twitter, you may have known Sassycrass directly, but here’s the thing: Even if you never heard or knew of Sassycrass, you almost certainly know her work.
It is now common knowledge that disinformation campaigns are rampant on social media platforms, especially campaigns that engage in digital blackface. It was Shafiqah’s work and research along with the work and research of several other Black women and nonbinary folks that unearthed this, and revealed that disinformation on these platforms is a real thing. As well as understanding the world of digital blackface and the harm it creates.
Disinformation campaigns played a major role in the 2016 elections, resulting in Donald Trump winning, and it was the work of Black women and nonbinary folks that created the foundation for understanding how disinformation works. Most anyone who spends any amount of time online understands trolls and bots. Guess what? You can thank Shafiqah for that.
However, despite her critical work and research and a few cursory write-ups, Shafiqah never received the job offers, grants, or monetary success that almost certainly would have been hers had she been of a lighter hue. Instead, her research was pilfered by many and led to success for many others—but not for her. Instead, she was shut out of opportunities in the way that many Black women are.
I joined Twitter in 2009, and not long after that I connected with Shafiqah. While we were by no means super close, over the years we talked privately on a number of matters and followed each other and our respective work. Like many who followed her, we knew that after several bouts of COVID, she was struggling with not only her health but her basic survival needs. In recent years, she had taken to crowdfunding regularly to raise carfare for what had become a steady stream of healthcare appointments. Along with crowdfunding for help with rent.
Long COVID left her with extreme hypertension and a host of ailments and—days before her death—she had received a cancer diagnosis.
In the last days before her death at 46, she was crowdfunding to raise money to get to a medical appointment. In fact, her last tweet was an ask for help to get to a critical medical appointment. At the time of her death, it had barely received any traction.
Her last tweets seemed to sense that her time on this rock was coming to an end. She actually tweeted that she didn’t think she would live to see 50. Even with that heaviness, she was a dedicated activist and community builder engaging in conversations on important matters.
She died broke, living in an extended-stay hotel, as it was all she could afford, often crowdfunding to stay housed.
Funny thing about death, and this is particularly true for Black women, is that you are suddenly remembered and valued. As evidenced by the fact that after being essentially blackballed and forced to rely on the kindness of strangers for survival after creating pivotal work, the gray lady did an obituary on her, and now there is even a Wikipedia page for her. Both are powerful symbols recognizing the importance of her work, but why did a 46-year-old Black woman have to die to be recognized after being treated so shamefully?
Why must we give so much to the point that our bodies give out far too early? Why must we give our lives for the greater good, only to be forced to rely on the generosity of strangers to survive or not? Why can’t Black women create a body of work that is groundbreaking and be properly honored and compensated while we are of sound body, mind, and spirit to receive and enjoy those accolades?
I am heartbroken at her death but I am also angry, because while Shafiqah is receiving her flowers posthumously, there are many other Black women who won’t even receive that.
I know far too many white people will read this piece and shake their heads in sorrow, but never stop to think about how they almost certainly took the knowledge, wisdom, and work of some Black woman and probably never thought to appreciate them or even compensate them. Always assuming that someone else will do it, when too often no one else is doing it, unless it is another Black woman—giving from her own often-meager reserves because that’s what Black women do. We pass around that same $20 to $30 as best we can, knowing it might be us who needs carfare or rent money the next time.
Meanwhile, too many white people will say that they can’t do anything, when often they have far more to give than we already give to our own. As many have said, Shafiqah deserved so much better. She did, and so do countless other Black women who are still here.
Forty-six is too young to die for most people, except that as a Black woman, you know that death can often come at any time after 40. Longevity of life is a privilege often reserved for the financially privileged or white folks or even white-adjacent folks. Even if we are fortunate enough to enjoy longevity of years, it is no bulwark against poverty and material lack as we age out of the work world.
Your work can be used and taught globally and you can still end up needing a Patreon to ensure that in retirement you aren’t supplementing your meals with the occasional cans of kitty chow. Yet, people continue to look to Black women as leaders and saviors, when we aren’t even valued enough to be compensated and not taken advantage of.
Rest in power Shafiqah, aka Sassycrass. May there be kittens, cutie pies, and good vino where you are.
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