They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

The body of this essay focuses on the ways marginalized groups of people have fought back against systems of oppression. Abdurraqib identifies the tension inherent in this position—grieving but living on, recognizing America’s faults but struggling to improve it, etc.—with Gaye’s What’s Going On. Abdurraqib lists several examples of people working toward a fairer world and says that he will remember them while watching fireworks this year.

Abdurraqib recalls going to see a concert that Atmosphere, a rap duo from Minneapolis, performed in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He attended because a woman he was interested in loved the band and wanted to see it perform. He mentions that there is something especially exciting about watching artists perform in (or near) the city they are from, and he found the concert exemplary. Toward the end of the show, Slug (one half of the duo) told the audience that they should forget about what was going on outside the venue, assuring them they would survive no matter what: “[W]e’re gonna be all right. We’re going to make it” (170).

At the end of the concert, Abdurraqib turned his phone back on and saw that Trayvon Martin had been murdered five hours earlier.