An Optimistic Quest in Apocalyptic Times

In this stunning essay at The Bitter Southerner, Nylah Iqbal Muhammad reflects on reconnecting to the land and learning to hunt in order to adapt to a new world. “As we prepared to hunt together,” she writes, “we talked for hours about how the world was ending, how we could reclaim what we’d lost — land, family, sovereignty.” Muhammad writes about history and trauma, land loss and Black displacement, and empire and end times with clarity and power.

I had to prepare, I had to learn, and I had to be quicker about it. During my first hunting season, all my mentors had been white. I had to use their land, their weapons, their ammunition, and even during spiritual experiences with people I respected like in Wyoming, I felt like I was entreating white people to let me into an inheritance that was already mine. I needed to learn from Black people, on Black land. I called Brea and told her I thought the world was ending, and I needed to learn how to survive it to make it to the next one. She had a plan.