Kellie Carter Jackson | Los Angeles Times (TNS) Refusal is a powerful political act. Acting in defense of themselves, Black people and Black women in particular have consistently refused the terms of oppression, discrimination and dehumanization. Refusal is a forceful no, packed full of energy and meaning.
“We refuse” is similar to Black colloquialisms such as “nah,” “nope,” “not today, Satan” or my personal favorite: “Oh helllllllll no.” Resistance is how one responds to white supremacy; refusal is why. In America, we tend to focus more on how resistance is manifested or performed.
Not nearly enough emphasis is placed on why resistance is so crucial to the American story. My great-grandmother Arnesta helps tell that story. In 1915, Arnesta was 9 years old in rural Alabama when she stepped on a rusty nail.
Not long after, infection set in and Arnesta became very ill. She most likely suffered from tetanus, which can be deadly if untreated. Her mother, Mary, was frantic.
Mary took Arnesta to the only doctor she knew, a white man who lived in a big house on the other side of town. The doctor agreed to help Arnesta, but on one condition — that after he healed her, she would have to live in his home and work for his family for the rest of her life. Slavery had been abolished 50 years prior, yet the doctor felt entitled to Arnesta’s life and labor in perpetuity.
For a Black girl living during one of the worst periods of race relations in America, these were .
