{"id":7191,"date":"2025-09-07T16:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T16:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7191"},"modified":"2025-09-07T16:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T16:03:09","slug":"under-trumps-authoritarian-rule-sleep-becomes-a-matter-of-survival-for-black-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7191","title":{"rendered":"Under Trump\u2019s Authoritarian Rule, Sleep Becomes a Matter of Survival for Black Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stacy M. Brown<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With President Donald Trump\u2019s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), attempts to erase African American history, and targeting cities with large Black populations such as Washington, D.C., and Chicago, rest itself has become a form of resistance.<\/p>\n

For Black Americans and other marginalized groups bearing the brunt of Trump\u2019s harmful policies, activists, politicians and health experts alike emphasize the importance of sleep. As federal protection is stripped away and economic inequality deepens, the lack of restorative rest threatens not just health, but survival.<\/p>\n

“Rest is NOT a trend. Liberation from the toxic systems that view our bodies as a machine for profit is also not a trend. This is ANCIENT work,\u201d the Nap Ministry \u2014 founded by \u201cRest is Resistance: A Manifesto\u201d (2022) author Tricia Hersey \u2014 wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter<\/a> during the first Trump administration in December 2020. \u201cOur Rest is Resistance framework is deeply rooted in ancestral, spiritual and radical political thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson (D) has warned that Trump\u2019s actions \u2014 removing Black Lives Matter Plaza, rolling back diversity initiatives, cutting funding to HBCUs, and attempting to erase Black figures from national websites \u2014 amount to an assault on Black voices and history. At the same time, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has documented how Trump\u2019s economic agenda delivers what it calls a \u201ctriple threat\u201d to Black households: slashing food assistance, cutting Medicaid coverage, and imposing tariffs that undermine Black-owned businesses. These economic attacks leave families under constant stress, compounding the daily exhaustion of living under targeted policies.<\/p>\n

That stress translates directly into sleep. A growing body of research shows how insufficient rest harms physical and mental health.<\/p>\n

A review in Nature Reviews Endocrinology<\/a> found that inadequate sleep and circadian misalignment are not just inconveniences but powerful drivers of obesity and metabolic disease, disrupting appetite hormones and increasing the likelihood of poor food choices.<\/p>\n

A separate systematic review in Sleep Medicine Reviews<\/a> demonstrated that sleep quality is directly linked to self-control, with insufficient sleep reducing the ability to manage impulses and make healthy decisions.<\/p>\n

The dangers go further. Research published in Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental<\/a> revealed that sleep restriction increases hunger and insulin resistance, heightening the risk of type 2 diabetes. Another perspective confirmed<\/a> that chronic sleep loss is linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, noting that while short-term studies show increased hunger and weight gain, the long-term risks are even more profound.<\/p>\n

Neuroimaging studies in the Journal of Neuroscience<\/a> found that even a single night of sleep deprivation upregulates the brain\u2019s reward circuitry, making people more likely to overvalue high-calorie foods. And according to the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,<\/a> insufficient sleep is now considered a key driver of the global epidemics of obesity and diabetes, with sleep deprivation inducing weight gain and glucose dysfunction.<\/p>\n

For Black Americans, the overlap between political oppression and health vulnerability is especially stark. Trump\u2019s policy agenda forces millions to choose between paying for food, rent, or healthcare. The CBPP notes that more than 11 million Black people lived in households receiving food assistance in 2023, and 13 million relied on Medicaid or CHIP for health coverage \u2014 lifelines now under direct attack. The loss of such programs not only drives economic instability but also fuels the stress and insomnia that worsen chronic health outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack Americans have worked hard and sacrificed for generations. One man can\u2019t silence our voice or erase our legacy,\u201d Rep. Thompson said.<\/p>\n

Yet without adequate sleep \u2014 one of the most basic pillars of health \u2014 Trump\u2019s policies are eroding the foundation of well-being for millions.<\/p>\n

Amid challenges, The Nap Ministry is emphasizing the importance of rest.<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t want a seat at the table. The table is full of oppressors,\u201d the organization wrote as an Instagram caption, taking the text directly from Hersey\u2019s \u201cRest is Resistance.\u201d \u201cI want a blanket and a pillow down by the ocean. I want to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: Published without changes from Washington Informer Newspaper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stacy M. Brown With President Donald Trump\u2019s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), attempts to erase<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[255,33,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america-under-attack","category-health","category-regular-column"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7193,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191\/revisions\/7193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}