Suicide as a socially positioned "phenomenon" primarily focuses on whiteness while completely ignoring the dominant systems of white supremacist violence that codify life, death, and stigma through the lens of racial terror. The social and legal interpretations of self-inflicted death are racialized and erase those who are not considered valuable, grievable, or human. Understanding Suicide as a compounded racial issue will deconstruct the definition of Suicide into a form of escapism for those who suffer life as a plantation. Moving beyond grievable flesh means inviting the opportunity to welcome frameworks that address antiblackness as barriers to Suicide support and intervening in global Suicide stigma. 

Hunter Shackelford (they) is a Black multidisciplinary artist, independent scholar, death worker, and bioethicist based in the DMV. Hunter is a contemporary writer and mixed media painter known for using incendiary motifs of Blackness, gender, fatness, and death. Their work centers the politics of Black insurgency, Black mortality, Black feminist ethics, and ugliness. Learn more about Hunter’s work at HunterAshleigh.com