Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey

I was first introduced to a concept of ‘colored people time’ from a Black perspective by Amber Rose Johnson, now Dr. Johnson, a ModPo facilitator.  It came up during one of the zoom discussions during last fall’s ModPo course.  Amber Rose was part of an art exhibit on the topic, and she co-edited the exhibit catalogue which contains a number of thought provoking essays.  For a deep dive into the topic, I recommend the catalogue, Colored People Time.  

Briefly, colored people time is in direct response to slavery and slavery’s driving forces, capitalism and white supremacy.  Slaves would find subversive ways to slow down production, sometimes at great personal cost.  The success of our country’s economic system is built on slave labor—the first slaves arrived in 1619.  Capitalism requires high production at low cost.  When unregulated, it exploits workers and pushes wealth to the top.  Slowing down is resistance—rest is resistance.

Tricia Hersey, is a Black minister who founded The Nap Ministry (she calls herself the ‘Nap Bishop’).  She grounds her work in the idea that endless work at the expense of rest, a core American value which began with slavery and continues to do harm to everyone to this day, consciously and unconsciously supports both unbridled capitalism and white supremacy.  She makes a case for reflecting upon what drives busyness; who or what controls one’s time.  A tool she puts forth to reclaim one’s time and withdraw from the toxicity of capitalism and racism is rest.  It is not rest from exhaustion that returns one to busyness and back to rest in an endless cycle.  She outlines a generative rest that opens up the imagination to dreaming new ways of being.  Day dreaming is valued, not denigrated.  Like mindfulness meditation, it is a conscious practice built into one’s everyday life.  It is a form of resistance, a rebellion against engrained toxic cultural norms.  

The author comes from a Pentecostal background and the foundation of her own practice is faith based, but her ideas are grounded in solid history, sociology, psychology and economic analysis.  It’s a quick read but very thought provoking.