Qaher

I first saw the word qaher on instagram in an infographic describing the Arabic word for a suffering so deep, a grief so overwhelming, a rage so sacred, a sorrow which drowns so fully, that you are compelled to take action, for death is on the horizon whether you decide to take action or not. 

When looking up the word under an alternate spelling, kahir, the word is included in a Turkish saying that translates to “blessing in disguise.” Even as white supremacy and his kin anti-blackness, misogyny, ableism, and xenophobia lash out with their weapons of exploitation, it is clear their hold on the global majority is loosening. However, death throes of the U.S. empire, built on violence and oppression, are particularly frenzied as we are forced to witness insurmountable death and abuse. The “United States” has existed for 247 years—empires last for an average of 250. They take a very long time to put together, but once they begin to fall, it happens all at once. I have witnessed this fall as a blessing in disguise, particularly in the third space scene: places outside of work and the home for people to gather. 

At a show with a friend for one of my favorite bands, she told me that the bassist was an abuser right as their set ended. I was shocked. I didn’t ask for details because I didn’t think it was my place to ask for clarification, but I wilted. During a music break, they had given a whole speech on stage about the importance of talking about Palestine in public, how all of our struggles were interconnected, and why we needed to come together as we all reach our breaking point. As someone who has been on the brink far too many times to count, this set had just been a huge release for me. Then I was let down.

As I lay down later that night in bed, reflecting on the evening, I thought about how my friend had gone on to say that it seemed like everyone was an abuser these days, which broke my heart. I couldn’t entirely disagree. While not all survivors become abusers, from what I have witnessed, most abusers are survivors of abuse themselves. 

I weep every time I have to lose a friend, or an artist, or a role model because there are allegations against them. What does it mean to live in a world full of folks who prey on others, stripping them of the light that shines within, desperate to snuff out any possibility of joy because the same acts of violence have been done to them? How do we dream of a better world when some people are too afraid to break the cycle? What is the work that is required to truly create a village?

---

My first experience with a village was when I was abroad in Ghana during the first half of 2020. Coming out of a deeply religious upbringing where church was our main source of community, I was entering a world of wonder and vulnerability. Not only did I enter my first relationship, I also met my chosen family in Ghana—most of the people on my program were also Black, gay, and on the run from their liberal arts campuses. I was able to come out to a few of my Ghanaian cousins while visiting my Uncle's house in Accra. For the first time, I witnessed what love really meant and could be. 

The people on that program came from all over the U.S.with a mixture of hope for this experience and anxiety about what to expect. While some came in groups and others came alone, all that mattered was that we were together. Every component of the trip had a healing effect—the food was nourishing, the music was hypnotic, and the connections were intimate. 

As the amalgamation of Black queer and trans folks I was blessed to share space with opened our hearts to one another (often facilitated by herbs), we recognized that our Blackness was read differently in Ghana than in the states. I recall talking at length with a friend how being in Ghana was the first time I felt desirable. The conversations we had about our bodies, our loves, our fears, and our desires made me hopeful to bring this approach of relating to others back to my relationships at home. However, returning to the U.S. revealed a far different reality. 

With the pandemic spreading like hellfire by the time I landed stateside, I was exhausted by travel and the impending sense of doom. Quarantined in the basement of my childhood home where I had been touched inappropriately by an older boy cousin, I fell into the deepest and darkest depression of my life. I was cold all the time. I felt so much dread as I sat alone, endlessly scrolling as the death toll climbed higher and higher. Then, right when my quarantine was up, George Floyd was murdered. 

It was as if the world imploded. Suddenly I was protesting while masked and making sure to turn off my phone to avoid detection by the state. Between the pandemic and the increase of highly publicized state sanctioned lynchings, I burned out very quickly. I returned to campus for my final year of undergrad, struggling to focus in my pre-med classes. I quit playing rugby and resorted to getting high in my dorm room to ignore the voices that had started to sound off in my head. They shouted that what was happening was not acceptable, that the world we live in is a perpetual hell through which anti-Blackness runs deeply. I had been hating myself my entire life. 

Anti-blackness is predicated on the fact that there is an inherent wrongness associated with Blackness, which has historically been placed opposite whiteness. Anti-blackness allows for hierarchies of respect and the blocking of autonomy, which in turn harms everyone who exists under anti-black systems. The kidnapping of indigenous people from the West African coast was non-consensual, yet the invention of chattel slavery changed the way the world viewed Black people forever. Abuse and harm happens to so many of us because we currently exist under a culture of rape and extraction. 

1 in 4 women are sexually assaulted on a college campus, yet most attacks go unreported because there is no culture of consent. When I was groped by a white queer person who followed me around a party afterwards, I asked my college administrators for an intervention. There were too many others like me who had been let down by the culture of silence on our small campus. I was angry with how many repeat offenders were allowed to live, work, and play sports with no restrictions, giving them access to more victims. The administrators insisted they could only do so much under Title IX. Their lack of support enforced my belief that having my consent violated was a part of growing up and being perceived as a woman. 

After a while, I started to believe that I had no autonomy or ownership over my body. There was no point in speaking up about the harm my body was enduring in my feminine presentation. No one would believe me, anyway. 

I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I avoided the eyes of the child who was begging to be set free from the idea that her voice did not matter. I did not feel safe or at home anywhere because I did not feel safe or at home in my own body.

Amidst the trauma I have experienced, I am in awe that I came out of these last three years a better human, more equipped to love with intention no matter what happens. I can say this is due in large part to the ways I learned to be in community while in Ghana. Now, more than ever, do I believe that the empire will fall. 

---

Empires such as the U.S. require us to die so that they may live, but they do not die for us, the disposable humanity. Anyone who is not a part of the owning/billionaire class is disposable: disabled people, poor people, Black people with status, or anyone with intersecting identities. They do not work in our favor. They do not create a safe place for us to land; in fact, empires demand that our safe spaces be trampled, destroyed, and filled with abusers who know nothing but self-hatred because they were taught nothing but self-hatred. 

The survivors of one of the most violent and long standing empires known to humankind share many connections. We must keep listening to each other and paying close attention to the humanitarian crises happening throughout the globe, because all of our struggles against oppressive systems, from the Hood to Palestine, Cuba to Hong Kong, The Congo to Ireland, are connected. The world has decided enough is enough. To me, that is an immense blessing.

The fight for the world we want to live in starts on a spiritual level, and the people with capital who abuse their power have been fighting on the spiritual and physical realm to keep control over our lives. But this won’t be the case forever. The desire to build intentional community with our neighbors is a shared desire, one that is predicated on the fact that you will defend my life as if yours depends on it—which it does. We must have the courage to listen to and talk with one another without fear.  I have built a community with a few folks whom I trust to tell me their needs and desires. I trust them to hold onto mine, even when a shame that is not mine eats away my flesh from the shadows. 

The superficial shame fed to us by our families, our schools, our workplaces, and our online spaces ensure we are disgusted with our only true possession in the universe, the vessels that have allowed us to experience life in this realm. We live under laws that determine who is and is not disposable based on their physical and mental ability to perform the labor required to upkeep the empire. 

I don’t want these cycles of abuse to continue defining our story. I want us to live, to laugh, to love, to play, to blow bubbles, to read books, and to color outside the lines. I want to beat my friends at mancala, build a home, and plant a garden. I want to wave hello to my neighbor, share lemonade with my neighbor, eat fruit with my neighbor, look over the children of my neighbors, sing songs with my neighbor, and make love with my neighbor. I want to rest. For there has been too much suffering. And we all are owed rest. 

Qaher. Qaher. Qaher. I rage because I love. I cry because I love. I grieve because I love. There is no greater force, blessing, desire, or intention. Actionable love requires me to tell you when you have done wrong, and to love you through the process of self-forgiveness and spiritual growth. Actionable love also demands that we know when to walk away, to recognize we do not have to tolerate abuse. There is no simpler truth than love, but there is also no embodiment harder to accomplish. To love is to grieve the horrors we must bear witness to as we find our way back to the village.

"Qaher" was first published in Issue 21 of Ebony Tomatoes Collective.