Who’s Killing Us? Black Cis-Het Men.

The Death Work Manifesto.

Black cis-het men’s identity and sustainability is directly rooted in Black death.

Black cisgender heterosexual men actively and overwhelmingly prey upon and assassinate: Black trans people, Black intersex people, Black queer folks, Black women, Black children, Black men, Black people. There is no negotiation around this reality. The allegiance to masculinity as cannibalization, as assault, as entitlement without labor, as infantilization with control, as unequipped dominance, as necro-arousal, as murderous incompetence, as calculated contradiction, as deadly — is the commitment to killing any and everyone who is Black.

Possibility is an illusion where your death is obligatory.

They cannot embody life, care, love, or wellness. The very fidelity to being a Black cisgender heterosexual man is a pledge to kill, consume, terrorize, subjugate, and punish all Black people, especially Black gender oppressed people. They ensure bondage of all those who engage, who seek relationships, and who seek currency from aligning with them. There is no love possible with those who cannot love, but only siphon. There is no love with someone who will terrorize, hunt, harass, sexually prey upon, and abuse those who are gendered, who are dark skin, who are trans, who are intersex, who are queer, who are fat, who are disabled, who are parents, who are young, who are poor, who are othered.

Deathly pleasure is instability.

When they choke you, when they take satisfaction from you and extract their desires without reciprocity, when they attempt to kill you as a means to curate gratification, when hidden intentions are foreplay to bloodshed, when nonconsent is the premise to their thriving — this is not a pleasure where life or care exists. This is a pleasure sustained by abuse, turbulence, disaster, plague, violence. Can these mannequinned desires live outside of this space, with the intention of consent? Yes. Will this desire manifest as consensual and healthy with Black cis-men? No.

If their diet is Black death, the revolution is to starve them.

When we attempt to save those who will never see us deserving of the life that sustains them, we must recognize that we’ve committed ourselves to an eternal and repetitive morbidity. You’ll always die trying to save a nigga who’s identity requires your death, who’s flesh is only sustained by the price of your flesh, who’s pleasure seeks your blood as sacrifice, and who’s gut only growls for your endless labor. Engaging with Black cis-het men is always death work.

You will always die because their life depends on it.

Our dead bodies are scattered in our hoods, in our homes, in our streets, in our movements, at our protests, on public transit, on their plates, in their beds, in their gut, in their smiles. We say solidarity is possible if only they recognized their freedom is tied to ours. We preach Black love will save us. We ask them to love us the way we love them. We ask them to care for us how we care for them. We ask them to desire us how we desire them. We ask them to fight for us how we fight for them. We beg niggas to teach other niggas, to intervene with their niggas, to kill the niggas who are killing us, to kill the allegiance to Black death in their heart. We die, we labor, we cry, we scream, we fight, we die, we mourn, we shoot back, we compromise, we shrink, we grow, we miscarry, we die, we protect, we theorize, we build sanctuary, we think piece, we campaign, we educate, we ask, we demand, we die.

Those who run are still dead.

For those who know the risk of being near Black cis-het men, for those who feel the same fear around Black cis-het men that they feel around police, for those who avoid eye contact and keep their headphones in, for those who shoot first, for those who know history is evidence enough, for those who run and never look back — they’ll come in the morning. For those who have divested already, for those who build the worlds after this one knowing who can’t come with us, they still hunt us and kill us. We run, they follow. We become fugitive of the state, and become fugitive of these niggas. We run, they hunt. They need to kill us even if there’s prey that’s more accessible. Because they never get full when their identity is gluttonous massacre.

We always die.

Their commitment to death means their undoing too. Black cis-het men cannot access life unless they divest from a gender and sexual identity that is inherently overseer and hunter. But our commitment must be to each other and ourselves. Save yourself, because they need you to die. Save yourself, because they will never be who you want them to be. Save yourself, you will never find solace in relationship, in temporary pleasure, in fleeting moments, in deadly chaos. Save yourself, because there is no freedom with these niggas.

All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk. All niggas ain’t my niggas.

Abolition means bloodshed, because we must divest from anyone’s preservation that requires our death. And if your allegiance is to Black death — to sustaining Black cis-het men’s terror — be prepared to suffer with them.

*Note: Yes, some of these realities are not exclusive to Black cis-het men. But a.) I only write about and to Black people; b.) no one experiences antiblack gender captivity like Black people; c.) I do not consider non-Black people in access to freedom or consider them in my vision of liberation. **

**Note: The title comes from Jamie M. Grant’s essay ‘Who’s Killing Us’ quoting Mrs. Sara Small, the aunt of the fifth victim of the Roxbury Murders, Daryal Ann Hargett.