BNP Testimonies: Alabama Shakes And Other Remedies

In response to the staggering election results in which many members of marginalized communities experienced how disconnected they were from their fellow citizens as the country elected bigotry and hatred; Black Nerd Problems put out the call to hear how people were coping. Here is a collection of short essays on what we’re doing, just to get by. The Threat: Myles Franklin Yates / Twitter: @projectspitBlack Male, who knows that his voice Matters, that his feelings are valid. While in my junior year of my undergrad as a Finance major, I have found myself a hobby of taking pictures of the sky. I don’t know why I started doing this. Reasons I thought of include appreciating the beauty of what was around me, the belief that God take artists who have died and give them a job to do, or the idea of what heaven might look like after my time of living passed. Whatever it may be, it helped distress my mind from dealing with taking six classes and the future I will have to take. I already knew how the outcome was going to end. I went to bed with the desire to sleep off the worry. I still woke up early and couldn’t go back to bed. Instead of laying in the darkness, I decided to go outside to breathe in the air and see what the sky had to say about all of this. Deciding also to listen to Sound and Color, and Don’t Wanna Fight, by Alabama Shakes. I chose these songs because they reflected the reaction I had of the election.  

When I first laid eyes on the sky, the clouds have formed…