From the time I was accepted into a gifted school in Brooklyn, I quickly learned the art of code switching. The syntax I used at home had no place in school. My relaxed English was no longer an acceptable way of expressing myself. It was the first time I realized that there were two worlds and to survive in one, required an entirely different vocabulary.
High School days meant riding home with my friends and sharing stories in the pizza shop or local McDonald's without caring how loud we got, and we always seemed to get loud. What we had to say was important, unlike the way we felt during the school day. What we had to say outside of the classroom was far more important to us because our voices mattered to our friends. And often times what we had to say did not correspond to the listening ears we had for teachers. School often felt like an overly censored television show, where there was no room for us to host any opinions in reference to what and how we learned.
The boat ride home with my sister got just as loud because she had to be equally informed about everything that happened that day from the time we parted ways that morning. She had tea to dish, and I had tea ready to sip. In between every story, I could always catch a glimpse of at least one side eye. Normally, there was some older lady turning her nose up at our conversation, loathing the volume we reached. With a mean side eye back and a hard eye roll, I learned how to ignore and went back to eagerly listening. After years of riding New York City public transportation with my friends, and encountering endless disapproving stares I’d like to shed some insight as to why Black people tend to shout.
Making our voices echo is not an accident nor is it a side effect of being ghetto. We used to have a language and a native tongue. However, after being stripped of our culture, all we have left to cling to is the wave frequencies we share between each other and mother earth. It’s my explanation as to why melanated people are so gifted in music, the first at learning the drums, skilled at bouncing a basketball, and profound at playing on teams. It's the reason we can look at each other and hold an entire conversation without words. We are experienced in that way. All it required was a hard stern look from my aunt during church, and I knew it meant to look ahead and pay attention to the preacher. My friends and I could go out to an event and feel the same vibe wash over the room and, without a word or a cue, we knew to get up and exit left on beat.
The Tuskegee Airmen were not simply phenomenal because they learned how to fly planes. George, Bob, and Tom were flying planes way before them. It's the unexplainable vibrating rhythms that pump through their blood as descendants of Africa that resulted in their impressive flying record. Relative to the way no one knew the true talents of these pilots because they were never given an opportunity to demonstrate their proficiency. Black people are forever in search for safe places; and when we cannot find them, we create them. We make room for ourselves, even, in the places where we are unwanted. We can create scenes in a hospital, gather crowds for our street dancing, and stop people in their tracks to hear us sing.
When we go to the movies or even the theatre to indulge in art there is no such thing as silence with a black audience. We tend to shout at the screen condemning Taraji P. Henson for letting Idris Elba in the house where her kids sleep in the movie “No Good Deeds.” We laugh loud, the big belly laugh that bounces off the walls as to enjoy the moments as they never seem to last long enough.
Black people are just as good at shouting in the moments of Joy, as well as in the moments of pain. Pain is an emotion the black community knows too well. Yelling from a place of pain mimics the fight to be heard. Every octave up our voices travel and for every bellowing note that registers ring the pain we carry from our ancestors who died in chains. It's the daily frustration of having to live everyday disguising ourselves to exist in a world that refuses to acknowledge us as human when there is no willingness to investigate black injustices. It is the voice your mom puts on when she answers an unknown number, the dreads you cannot grow, to secure your employment, it's the remaining silent and cracking a smile to the inappropriate race joke your boss tells.
Attending a black church is an entirely different experience. Black churches can best be labeled as organized chaos where both pain, suffering, alleviation and comfort live. It is a great space where shouting is welcomed. It’s where Black people shout for the lord, shout in the lord’s house to discipline their children, shout to agree with the preacher and shout just for joy. The black church has been one of the first safe havens black people sought after to experience peace. It explains why Malcolm X had a strong following in his efforts to focus on developing communities solely, for the black community. The black church was where we hid in the underground railroad, where our first colleges initiated, where we get rejuvenated with the word, where we bury our loved ones, where we marry, the sacred place where we pray, sing, eat, and fellowship. It is the building, and sometimes just a house where we are free to just to be. Because as this quote states, “Being black in America is exhausting. You want us to sing, dance, play football, run fast, be your target practice, and then be silent.” We need these safe places in this society that cripple black people with their restrictions, standards, and expectations.
Black people tend to shout to remind the world that adversity, obstacles, and near death experiences are a part of their morning routine. That surviving the African Diaspora has not killed their spirit of determination, skills of adaptation, or their ability to innovate even when it goes unrecognized. Black people have a tendency to be loud for all the decades they were told to be silent, bow their heads, and walk in the street. Black people are loud because “Emmett Till.” Black people continue to be loud because America still does not hear the gasping. The desperation for air as oppression continues to suffocate them. “Eric Garner.” Black people shout because no one will do it on their behalf. Because black people living in silence is deadly and unfortunately, we cannot afford it.
