The Comedic Relief of Black Women’s Trauma

During the Juneteenth weekend rapper Megan Thee Stallion and rapper Dababy had a Twitter exchange stemming from a tweet Dababy allegedly retweeted which joked about a possible collaboration he would do with rapper Tory Lanez. The weekend of June 19th marked close to a year since Megan Thee Stallion recounted the events that led to Tory Lanez shooting her twice in the feet. Since then Megan has gone onto social media from Instagram Live to Twitter to express how deeply traumatic and terrifying the whole ordeal has been for her. 

Megan Thee Stallion writes “support me in private and publicly do something different…these industry men are very strange. This situation ain’t no damn “beef” and I really wish people would stop playing it like it’s some internet shit for likes and retweets”. As I recall watching an Instagram live last summer following the shooting where she emotionally expresses how she-a young woman who recently lost her mother and grandmother who she was close to-had to undergo surgery by herself. Megan continued by asking us how scary it would feel for us to experience something of this magnitude by ourselves at this age. As the intersecting identities of Black women often render us invisible, at times the disregard for our multifaceted identities goes further and is used to negate our traumatic experiences by amplifying humor in our pain. There seems to be an abundance of empathy but shortages occur in response to Black women. 

As Twitter swept with jokes of the shooting and people went as far as creating Halloween costumes mimicking the event when it initially occured, it became evident that there are many elements of comedic relief that people tend to hone into in the wake of a traumatic events for celebrities like Megan and Black women as a whole. Reflecting on the history and key figures in popular culture that have contributed to the disposal of Black Women’s bodies, this humor-oriented reaction goes deeper than any dislike for Megan Thee Stallion as an artist. The forms of such humor-oriented reactions come in a wide range of actions, even as subtle as pushing Black Women into swimming pools or snatching their wigs off in public places. As people’s seemingly comedic reactions appear to add the humor element to a distressing experience, the humiliation aspect therein deepens the pain of such traumatic experiences amongst Black Women. 

For Megan, she continues to boldly speak for herself and be the amazing rapper that she is. For so many of us she motivates us to defend our actions even when so many people in our own community chose to disregard us. Be sure to check out her new single “Thot Shit” and have a Hot Girl Summer!