Pokémon Go And Choosing The Blackest Joy

As you might expect, it begins with a selection of starters: today, do you choose fuming rage, crushing grief, or helpless fear? Perhaps you feel all three. Or none. Being Black in America is not just some game that anyone can control, after all. As a Black Nerd it’s impossible to ignore that in the same week that we gained Pokemon Go, arguably one of the most anticipated games of the year, we lost Alton Sterling and Philando Castile to police brutality (who in reality are part of an even longer list of murders by the police this week alone). Once again the debates flare up between distraction and self care, between what people “should” be talking about or feeling at any given moment. But if Pokemon taught me anything, it’s that there is always another option than the “starters” you’re given, and sometimes this, too, is its own revolutionary act. I’m talking about allowing ourselves to sometimes choose Black joy. No, the Blackest Joy.

When I stepped into the office the morning after downloading Pokemon Go, I was lucky in more than just the fact of living. I work for a hip-hop non-profit, so my office is already pretty Black; in the same space people debate which rapper is currently running the game we also pulled out old vinyls to mourn Prince or debate about what it means for characters of color to be written by white men. You don’t hear passive aggressive “All Lives Matter” quotes traded between cubicles and no one makes remarks about our hair unless we’re roasting each o…