Black Body Scrutiny and Generational Trauma - Free Post

Black Body Scrutiny and Generational Trauma ---- In Riotous Deathscapes, Hugo Ka Canham speaks of Ukwakumkanya, a way of seeing held by the indigenous Amapondo people and echoed across African and Black bodies in the diaspora. A practice of creating shadow in order to illuminate. Hands lifted to the face, eyes partially covered—not to refuse sight, but to queer and clear it. To narrow the field. To choose what enters the gaze.

Ukwakumkanya is described as a pause. A double take. A looking again. Eyes shielded and momentarily closed so the past can come into focus. A deliberate interruption of visual noise so what matters sharpens.

I think of this often, and it immediately calls up the meme of the Black femme squinting

into the distance—head slightly tilted, lips pursed, whole body saying hold on. That look we make when we already know. The tunnel vision required to exist inside Blackness, anti-Blackness, and everything that presses in between.

The ways we use our eyes when our mouths cannot speak. The looks exchanged in church, on the public bus, across the room. A Black knowing that never needs translation. You and your hom(e)ie locking eyes on the exact thing you were just discussing earlier.

Private jokes. Shared survival. A language of sight.

But tunnel vision has another edge.

Because with that narrowing of focus comes scrutiny—first as protection, then as inheritance. A legacy of learning how to get to the bad parts before anyone else does. To anticipate harm. To dissect before being dissected.

And somewhere along the way, that gaze turns inward.

Now it applies to me.

And everything I see.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/23e724_6182bca38b3b46279a08ce1258bf3f98/720p/mp4/file.mp4

to be overly critical

to critique

scrutinize

I have developed this way of first seeing

that involves the negative

what needs to be changed

fixed

a detailed description of why beauty just can’t be

and I realize these eyes within me, on me,

a part of me I often reach for first,

are inheritance—

Black Jurassic, generational trauma passed hand to hand—

learned surveillance disguised as discernment

in 2025 my goal was to begin shifting this sight

in 2026 the work, of course, continues

I recognize these eyes externally

because they have lived inside me

long before I had language

scrutinizing and denying myself

since I came into this place and space

like a time bomb

maliciously waiting in my DNA

the way I absorb and observe

the forever deconstruction of Blackness—

never w(hole), always picked apart

vultures of culture

and like a cult we are stuck

watering our Bleach Black skin with pride

the hide of melanin on otha’s backsides

and we are proud to see ourselves

draped and pinned

around the bodies of men

who still have our bodies

auctioned and blocked

and I am tired of the scrutiny of me

that I then push through to you

a deflection that deepens the wound

no matter how clever the colonial tongue

I understand boundaries differently now

they are not meant to hold me in

but to set me free

but placing a boundary on a Black woman

in the depth of pain and grief unknown—

walked all over, alone—

means defensive attack is put in place

and suddenly that scrutiny

is now debilitating me

because my boundary becomes her cage

she is in rage

scrutiny doubled back

attack

I have never had a positive experience

setting a boundary with Black women

from my mother

to my sibling

and beyond

I am not meant to see

not meant to acknowledge

only to ignore

and allow unhealed behavior to continue

as tradition

as loyalty

as love

I fear deeply

that I will never sustain

a relationship rooted in honor

with Black women—

is that fear rooted in truth

or in the way I bypass the loudest red flags

when they belong to my own?

I have romanticized

dreamed

about communal love among Black femmes

and built an altar to an ideal

unsustainable

unattainable

I have placed my own healing

in slow-motion, intentional care

yet expect community

to move at the speed of light

bruhhhhh

it’s ride slowwwww for a reason—

that colonial subconscious

still on autopilot

there are steps that cannot be skipped

and I am so ready to help

the energy overwhelms me

but I am learning

that overwhelm and confusion

at first engagement

is the signal to stop

it means the scales are already unbalanced

I too easily override

long-term gut discernment

for the short-term good feels

of mental repartee

and colonial cleverness—

a performance many use

to avoid facing themselves

I know I’ve said it before

but cycles return

not to punish

but to refine

this is how generational trauma breaks—

not by erasure

but by recognition

the healing lives in pattern recognition

in refusing to be shamed out of sight

in reaching for the toolbox

instead of the whip

this is how you dismantle scrutiny—

you turn the gaze back

without cruelty

without spectacle

you close the loop

by choosing wholeness

over dissection

and finally

you learn to see

without hunting for what must be fixed.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/23e724_9c5e8e4c2aec4820a3f1e4527d0ee8e5/720p/mp4/file.mp4