The Black body has been treated as an economic tool rather than a human life. Our worth was tied to our productivity. Our value was measured in output. Our survival depended on constant vigilance. Even today, Black employees report higher burnout rates, higher emotional labor, and higher pressure to outperform their peers just to be viewed as competent. Rest has never been part of our role in the US, so we learned to live without it.

Generational survival mode is the predictable outcome of centuries of policies that destabilized Black life: land dispossession, segregation, redlining, mass incarceration, predatory lending, underfunded schools, and labor exploitation. When a community spends generations fighting for basic safety, stability, and dignity, the body learns to prepare for the worst at all times. Trauma becomes normalized.