Rinse, Repeat, Revolt: The Cycle Black America Knows Too Well

The world’s going to shit.

Threats of tariffs being levied on our closest trade partners like we’ve got the luxury to piss off allies. The government is stripping protections for everyday people faster than you can scroll through doom-filled headlines. An unelected, foreign born billionaire having access to our private information and control of the spigot that is responsible for ensuring timely payments for critical services. We’re sliding toward authoritarian rule—not even with the grace of subtlety, but loud and proud, daring anyone to stop it.

Oh, and it’s Black History Month.

A time when we’re supposed to honor the past, reflect on the struggles, and acknowledge the progress—except, here we are, watching federal agencies being told to erase that history. Can’t celebrate culture. Can’t recognize identity. Can’t acknowledge heritage. Imagine that: your own government looking you dead in the face and saying, “You don’t exist.” What the fuck is that all about?

People are angry. Rightfully so.

They’re mad at politicians who sit on the “other side of the aisle,” the ones who post their carefully worded statements, perform outrage on cue, and then do absolutely nothing. But here’s the thing—the “winners” control all three branches of government now. Legislative, executive, judicial. They’re not just in power; they’ve got a monopoly on it. They don’t have to play fair because they’ve already rigged the game. They write the rules, enforce them, and reinterpret them whenever it suits their agenda.

But here’s the real question:

Is everybody just sitting around waiting for Black folks to save America again?

Because, if we’re being honest—and we are—that’s been the pattern. Crisis hits. The country’s on the brink. And somehow, it’s always Black folks standing up, throwing the first stone, sparking the movement, lighting the match that forces the nation to pay attention.

And let’s be even clearer: Black men and Black women have been at the center of that resistance every damn time.

Crispus Attucks didn’t just get caught in the crossfire of the Boston Massacre—he became the spark that ignited a revolution. The United States Colored Troops didn’t just fight in the Civil War—they tipped the balance, forcing the country to confront the hypocrisy of slavery while claiming to fight for freedom. The Civil Rights Movement didn’t just happen because people were fed up. It happened because Black men and women organized, strategized, marched, sat, stood, and died to force America to look in the mirror.

Sojourner Truth didn’t just ask “Ain’t I a Woman?”—she shattered the comfortable illusions of both white feminists and abolitionists, forcing them to confront the fact that Black women were being erased from both conversations. The backlash? Centuries of being written out of feminist history, treated as an afterthought even in movements they helped build.

Ida B. Wells dragged America’s hypocrisy into the daylight with her anti-lynching crusade. She called out not just the violence but the lies—the way lynching was framed as a response to crime when it was really about controlling Black bodies. The backlash? She was threatened, driven out of the South, her newspaper offices burned to the ground.

Fannie Lou Hamer stood in front of the Democratic National Convention in 1964 and told the unvarnished truth about voter suppression and racial terror in Mississippi. She didn’t sugarcoat it. She didn’t play nice. She said, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired,” and the backlash was immediate. The party silenced her, the president held a press conference just to overshadow her testimony, and she went back home to face more threats, more violence.

Angela Davis became the face of radical Black resistance, not because she sought the spotlight, but because the system made her a target. Her activism for prison abolition and against systemic racism got her labeled a terrorist. She spent time on the FBI’s Most Wanted list—not for committing a crime, but for being unapologetically Black, radical, and unafraid.

The Black Panther Party wasn’t just a symbol of defiance; it was an emergency stopgap for communities left to fend for themselves. Under leaders like Fred Hampton, the Panthers built coalitions that crossed racial and class lines—what Hampton called the Rainbow Coalition. They organized free breakfast programs, community clinics, and patrols to monitor police brutality when the government refused to protect its own citizens. The backlash? Hampton was assassinated in his sleep by law enforcement in a coordinated raid, and the Panthers were systematically dismantled through COINTELPRO operations designed to neutralize Black leadership.

And today? Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi co-founded Black Lives Matter—not as a trendy slogan, but as a declaration of survival. They took the grief and rage over state-sanctioned violence and built a movement. The backlash? Death threats. Disinformation campaigns. A global effort to discredit not just the movement, but the women who dared to start it.

Every single time Black men and Black women have stood up to speak the truth, the system has answered back—not with justice, but with backlash.

After Reconstruction, when Black communities started to rise?
Jim Crow laws. Lynchings. Voter suppression.

After the Civil Rights Movement?
Mass incarceration disguised as “law and order.” A war on drugs that was really a war on Black people.

After Obama’s presidency—a moment that symbolized hope for so many?
A tidal wave of white nationalist resurgence, culminating in Trump, the rise of MAGA extremism, and the normalization of hate rhetoric in political discourse.

After Black Lives Matter?
Anti-CRT hysteria. Book bans. History being erased while we’re still living it.

After decades of progress toward equity?
The Anti-DEI movement and the repeal of Affirmative Action, framed as attacks on 'wokeness,' but functionally targeting initiatives that benefit marginalized communities. Ironically, the biggest beneficiaries of these programs have historically been white women, not the Black folks being scapegoated in these culture wars.

And here’s the thing—we’re tired.

Tired of lifting, fighting, marching, building, only to be left holding the bag when the dust settles.

Tired of watching movements we birthed get co-opted, watered down, and rebranded for comfort.

Tired of being the backbone of a country that pretends we’re a liability until it’s time to cash in on our labor, culture, votes, or pain.

We’re not your magical Negroes. We’re not here to save America from itself. Not again.

Because every time we do, what do we get?
A pat on the head when it’s convenient, and a boot on our neck when it’s not.

You want to know what’s scarier than Black rage?
Black apathy.

Because when we stop caring, when we stop showing up, when we stop fighting to fix a system that was never built for us in the first place—what happens then?
Who’s going to save you when we decide we’re done saving everyone else?

Hope? Yeah, we’ve still got it. But don’t get it twisted. Hope isn’t some soft, feel-good sentiment you throw around in February with MLK quotes.

Hope is a weapon. Hope is resistance. Hope is survival.

We don’t hope because it’s easy.
We hope because we’re still here.
And we’re not going anywhere.

But if you’re waiting for us to pull America back from the edge one more time? You’re already too late.

Further Reading (For the Folks Who Like Receipts)

• Zobel, H. (1970). The Boston Massacre. W. W. Norton & Company.

• Berlin, I., Reidy, J. P., & Rowland, L. (1998). Freedom’s Soldiers: The Black Military Experience in the Civil War. Cambridge University Press.

• Painter, N. I. (1996). Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol. W. W. Norton & Company.

• Giddings, P. (2008). Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching. HarperCollins.

• Lee, C. (2000). For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. University of Illinois Press.

• Davis, A. Y. (1981). Women, Race & Class. Random House.

• Bloom, J., & Martin, W. E. (2016). Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party. University of California Press.

• Taylor, K. Y. (2016). From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Haymarket Books.

• Alexander, M. (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press.

• Tesler, M. (2016). Post-Racial or Most-Racial? Race and Politics in the Obama Era. University of Chicago Press.

• Haney López, I. (2014). Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. Oxford University Press.

• Katznelson, I. (2005). When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America. W. W. Norton & Company.

• Williams, J. C. (2014). What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know. NYU Press.

• Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination. American Economic Review, 94(4), 991-1013.