You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience

“For me, and many Black people, the data revealed by systemic racism isn’t a vague notion but a real enemy that may turn and come after me, at the moment when I’m too joyful to pay attention.”

In this passage, Austin Channing Brown describes her confrontation with foreboding joy. The Trauma of Racism and White Supremacy activated her sense that joy was something to be viewed with suspicion. Her experiences taught her that there was no point in engaging with joy in the moment; around the corner, a danger always lurked. Channing Brown’s understanding of foreboding joy comes from Brené Brown.

“But our community has learned that even the darkest depths of human evil cannot stuff out our experience of joy.”

This quotation represents Austin Channing Brown’s reclamation of joy. She asserts that white supremacy cannot and should not stifle joy. This connects to the theme of Vulnerability as Resistance. Vulnerability, also known as emotional risk, is synonymous with joy. To believe that one can engage with happiness, even within a system that is designed to strip joy away, is an emotional risk that rebels against this same system.

“I didn’t ‘have’ low self-esteem, as if it were something that I had just picked up in the supermarket. This was inherited, this was nurtured, this was force-fed to me through passive words, casual slaps, and cyclical violence.”

In the introduction, Brené Brown explains that when she read the essays in the collection, she was struck by the way intergenerational trauma had affected so many of the writers. In this passage, Tanya Denise Fields explains that her trauma and shame was not merely homegrown. Instead, it was handed down to her as part of the dowry of racism and white supremacy. The systems around her affirmed her shame repeatedly.

“So I said it loudly. I said it often. I was insistent, I was unrelenting. And then my sisters came out of the shadows, empowered and vulnerable, sharing narratives of violence, hurt, and the shame that was always right there, not really below the surface but subconsciously always moving the hand that led our lives.”

Fields’s proclamation is an example of confronting The Nature of Shame. By speaking aloud her self-worth, she began to feel it. When Fields shared her stories with others, she enabled the women around her to begin their own process of stepping away from shame. Fields paved the way for others, exhibiting Tarana Burke’s theory of Empowerment Through Empathy. When women see and understand the experiences of others as reminiscent of their own, they feel empowered to make choices that emphasize joy over shame.

“While we Black men must embrace tenderness and critically engage with our vulnerability, I also think it’s crazy how often that vulnerability is gobbled up along with the rest of our bodies by the worst of white folks.”

Laymon reveals an important element to the theme of Vulnerability as Resistance. The writers in the work mark a distinction between choosing to be vulnerable and forced vulnerability. Choosing to be vulnerable can be difficult for people of color when they live in a system that continually forces vulnerability upon them. Laymon shows how embracing vulnerability is its own form of resistance and that it takes the power away from dominating forces and returns it to the self.

“Shame is also the way that oppression becomes internalized. It is an emotional ritual for the marginalized.”

The selection of essays in Burke and Brown’s anthology highlights the unique relationship between shame and oppression. For marginalized groups, The Trauma of Racism and White Supremacy attaches shame to an individual’s core identity. Hemphill explains that this form of shame creates a barrier between the individual and loved ones. When people carry and nurture shame about the fundamental parts of who they are, they grow wary of allowing others to see their full selves.

“It’s important to name that this task of healing sits against a political backdrop, and that backdrop doesn’t allow us to simply individualize healing or imagine that it could ever be an apolitical endeavor.”

This quotation represents the heart of Burke and Brown’s work. In the Introduction, Burke and Brown engage in a dialogue about what the essays in the anthology mean to each of them. Brown expresses surprise at the way The Trauma of Racism and White Supremacy has impacted the writers. Burke advocates for antiracism; she argues that one cannot begin to understand Black humanity without working actively to be antiracist. The political context of shame for Black Americans is the societal construct that distributes shame.

“What does one do when shame is wrapped in love?”

Lewis-Giggetts breaks down how Christianity and Black churches that promote messages of love also uphold systems of shame. For example, she criticizes elder Black women for inflicting shameful messages on younger generations of women for their clothes and behavior. An important part of addressing The Nature of Shame is distinguishing between love and wrongful messages.

“I learned that my humanity was bound up in my masculinity. I was taught that my masculinity was best shown through physical strength and paying bills and controlling space and begin emotionally lean.”

In an interview with The Atlantic, “Messages of Shame Are Organized Around Gender,” Brené Brown explains to writer Andy Hinds that women are held to multiple, contradictory expectations that are impossible to meet and, therefore, translate into shame. Men, however, are given a clear message: weakness is shameful. This idea, Brown asserts, is maintained by both men and women. Hill’s essay reframes the conversation around masculinity and patriarchy.

“Black men model manhood after those who oppress us. We measure our humanity against the humanity of those who seek to kill us, our families, and maybe most of the planet. We imagine freedom to be the ability to accumulate the kind of unchecked power and privilege of cisgendered heterosexual White men.”

Hill sees Vulnerability as Resistance. By denouncing shame narratives and pursuing vulnerability, Hill does more than reclaim his own identity and joy. His vulnerability protests an oppressive model forced upon many Black men by white supremacy. In his essay, Hill describes how reading the work of author and educator bell hooks assisted him in thinking about his relationship to himself and others in a new way. hooks's work aligns the patriarchy with white supremacy. Each feeds the other. For this reason, a rejection of patriarchal shame subsequently denounces white supremacy.

“The most interesting thing about shame is that it hangs around like all bad habits do, thriving on its familiarity, allowed to remain because we are either too tired or too jaded to think we can survive without it.”

Keah Brown reveals how shame functions as a cycle. It exhausts the individual so that dispelling and expelling shame becomes too cumbersome. Keah Brown explains that as she grew older, she developed shame surrounding her disability, appearance, and intelligence. The more she let shame in, the more comfortable she became with it, allowing it to replace her core identity. Brené Brown’s guideposts for wholehearted living detail ten ways of living that need to be abandoned, including “anxiety as a lifestyle” and “exhaustion as a status symbol.” Shame convinces people that they need it to be creative or productive.

“The truth is, there is power in our vulnerability; and our capacity to share parts of ourselves, even the parts we hide from, gives us enormous strength.”

The Trauma of Racism and White Supremacy tells people that they must cling to shame. Many individuals see shame as a survival strategy. By believing that they are worth less than others, they better assimilate into a culture that perpetuates that idea. However, shame is not about survival; its only function is to uphold damaging structures that deserve to be toppled. Shame is about weakness, but vulnerability is about strength.

“Healing-centered engagement is akin to the South African term ‘ubuntu,’ meaning that humanness is found through our interdependence, collective engagement, and service to others.”

Ginwright advocates for a collective engagement with vulnerability. His work aligns with Vulnerability as Resistance, and the collective aspect emphasizes Empowerment Through Empathy. Ginwright suggests that when people are vulnerable together and heal together, they create a stronger path of resistance to white supremacy and a greater level of healing.

“You walk in anyway because you know there are things in that cave that you need to reclaim, things that have been taken from you. You walk in, despite the fear, to reclaim your ability to speak up and say what you need—to be seen and heard, and to take up space.”

Young argues that Black people must engage with vulnerability because it is necessary for healing and growth. Vulnerability is described by Brené Brown as emotional risk. While this can be painful, scary, and challenging, people engage with emotional risk to get better and to fight back against systems that hurt them. The Trauma of Racism and White Supremacy sells a narrative that this type of risk is dangerous. However, Young argues that vulnerability is the antithesis of white supremacy. By living with vulnerability, individuals are denouncing the power white supremacy and racial trauma has over their lives.

“I think the answer for all of us is that we have to start by owning our pain and being deeply vulnerable with ourselves first.”

One of the challenges with vulnerability for marginalized groups is that white supremacy creates a framework for forced vulnerability. Therefore, embracing emotional vulnerability can seem illogical. Young suggests that people begin by being vulnerable with themselves: naming and honoring their experiences and emotions. This is the first step toward Vulnerability as Resistance. Once they become comfortable being vulnerable with themselves, they begin to feel empowered and become more likely to be vulnerable with others.

“Looking through archives has power. I believe it can be used as a form of activism and healing.”

In this essay, Reece describes how she turned to her family archives of photos and papers to engage with healing. Her strategy connects to The Trauma of Racism and White Supremacy, as well as Empowerment Through Empathy. Reece was able to look back at her family’s photos and see the complex wholeness of her family members’ lives, even as they dealt with racial trauma. Reece was able to translate her empathy for her family to her own experiences.

“So in order to speak my own shame, and of shame and Blackness, I need you to first understand that through the lens of white supremacy, being Black is shame. And how we struggle to love ourselves and move through that shame is synonymous with how we battle white supremacy.”

Robinson highlights the relationship between white supremacy and shame. The message of white supremacy is that the very identity and skin color of people shameful. Robinson asserts that Black shame is more than individualized experience; it is the collection of generations of racial trauma. Being vulnerable is both a way to heal oneself and the patriarchal society upheld by white supremacy. This connects to the theme Vulnerability as Resistance. Robinson shows how embracing vulnerability with oneself creates opportunities to fight back against racist ideologies and mechanisms.

“White supremacy shames us out of our humanity and programs us to shame one another at its service. The cottonfield culture of slavery meant we were forced to push through rain or shine, sickness or health, because failing to do so could mean the death of those we held dear.”

One of the ways shame stands between marginalized people and healing is the perpetuation of the idea that vulnerability is dangerous. Robinson explains that many Black people see mental illness as a weakness that must be hidden or ignored, and that this attitude is born from generations of racial trauma. This is conflated with a medical system that dismisses and devalues the health experiences of Black people. In Chapter 4, Laymon reveals how the medical system fails to treat mental illness in Black patients or even acknowledge it as a possibility. Robinson and other writers in the anthology explore how vulnerability empowers people to seek the help they need. Rather than viewing asking for help as a weakness, they can begin to see how vulnerability supports and strengthens them. Confronting mental illness and asking for help resists the racial trauma and values of white supremacy and helps people reclaim their narratives. Vulnerability about mental illness can save lives.

“If we don’t talk about trauma, if we don’t talk about shame and do the work to begin to heal, to develop shame and trauma resilience, we can’t fully come together.”

Laverne Cox contributes to the theme Empowerment Through Empathy by emphasizing the collective effort of shame work and vulnerability. Cox explores how patriarchal values supported by white supremacy develop rifts and violence within Black communities. She argues that an open and honest dialogue is the first step toward healing and resilience.

“The idea that even when the world around me is chaotic, I could still produce and be essential and someone of value was a huge reframe for me.”

When Williams experienced sexual violence, she was not sure what to do with the changes she was seeing in how she carried herself and the choices she made. She knew the trauma of her experience had affected her, but she wanted to understand how she could heal and move forward. She learned that surrender was an important part of vulnerability. Williams had to acknowledge where she was in the moment and accept that it was what she needed during that time of her life.

“When we strive to be accepted—when we seek to appease the system—we often use tools of white supremacy as our armor to gird ourselves against the shame imposed by white supremacy.”

Bethea draws attention to the four ways that individuals react to the shame culture perpetuated by white supremacy. Three of the four ways are tools of white supremacy to continue the work of shame and oppression. By using these tools, individuals uphold a racist system that is designed to keep them attached to shame. Bethea believes that confronting The Nature of Shame requires wholeheartedness and working within a collective community of healing.

“You may not know her name, but you know each other. You see each other and you feel each other’s pain.”

The theme Empowerment Through Empathy is born out of Tarana Burke’s work with the #MeToo Movement. Bethea contributes to this theme by highlighting the importance of a shared experience of vulnerability. She suggests that being vulnerable with one another empowers people and helps them feel loved and seen.

“If you are a person whose very body marks you as deserving of disregard, or as available for violence, you are vulnerable no matter how strong or smart you are.”

Perry reveals an important aspect to the theme Vulnerability as Resistance. For marginalized groups, forced vulnerability can make it difficult to engage with emotional vulnerability. Perry asserts that being Black in the United States is synonymous with being vulnerable. Therefore, it can seem illogical to believe that engaging with emotional vulnerability is a pathway to dismantling structural vulnerability.