Pumping the Brakes While Black

My Taoist Reflection on Fear and Survival

A common practice of mind before I venture out to a new town or city is to check the “weather.”

But not the clouds, storms, or sun. I check the racial climate.

Is this a Sundown town in disguise? Is there a Confederate flag waving a little too defiantly near the Welcome sign?

Will my brown skin trigger side-eyes at the gas station, or worse, attract a badge and a gun with a temper?

For me and for many people of color, travel isn’t just an itinerary. It’s a ritual of risk assessment. We pump the brakes before we ever shift into drive.

While others ask, “Is there construction ahead?” we ask, “Is there danger ahead because of who I am?”

This hyper-vigilance is a form of psychic exhaustion. One that has carved ruts in my consciousness over the years—grooves of historical trauma that play on a continuous loop.

I used to barrel down back roads and interstates with a full tank of youthful trust. I was on the speaking circuit then—corporate gigs, motivational talks, leadership workshops.

Small-town America was often my audience, and my blind spot. I drove into communities I now know were potentially problematic —places where folks like me were once told: Don’t let the sun set on your Black face here.

But I didn’t know it then.

And I wonder, “was my ignorance grace? Or just dumb luck that I got out unscathed?”

The Many Faces of Fear

We all carry our own versions of this fear. My queer friends scan rooms with radar eyes to gauge safety. Women walk keys between their knuckles.

Muslim friends brace themselves at airport security. A trans person once told me, “I don’t go to the bathroom in public. It’s too dangerous.”

Different flavors. Same poison.

But the fear of being Black in unfamiliar places is something ancient in its roots and modern in its mutation.

It’s why Black Americans slow down when a cop car pulls behind us. It’s why I code-switch at rest stops. It’s why my stomach would tighten when a server says, “You’re not from these parts, are ya? ”

This is not paranoia. This is learned wisdom.

And it wears you down.

I Ching Insight: The Fear That Guides

The I Ching, the ancient Book of Changes, speaks to fear not as something to overcome but as something to observe and integrate.

In Hexagram 29, The Abysmal (Water), the lesson is not about escaping danger. It’s about learning to move through it with inner alignment. The abyss may appear bottomless, but the wise one crosses it not by running, but by flowing.

It doesn’t say, “Don’t be afraid.” It says, “Stay centered amid the fear.”

It doesn’t scream, “Fight or flee!”

It whispers, “Align with the Tao and respond from stillness.”

My Taoist practice doesn’t erase my fears. It transmutes them. When I feel my shoulders rise or my breath shorten before entering a strange town, I pause. I ground. I allow the energy of fear to pass through me like wind bending the bamboo, not breaking it.

The Burden of Hyper-Awareness

There’s a cost to pumping the brakes too often. Hyper-awareness can turn into hyper-vigilance. And hyper-vigilance, left unchecked, becomes spiritual inflammation. I know this. I’ve felt it in my bones.

There were years when I felt like I couldn’t relax, not even in joy. Like I had to qualify my existence in unfamiliar rooms.

That’s when I realized I needed something deeper than survival. I needed a way and a path.

The Tao doesn’t promise safe passage. Rather, it invites presence. When I remember that, I soften. I breathe into the flow rather than tensing for the fight. I remember Zhuangzi’s butterfly—not fighting reality, but becoming it.

Flow Over Fear

Pumping the brakes while Black doesn’t mean living in retreat. It means listening to that deeper signal. It means honoring the intuition that comes with ancestral memory and lived experience.

And yet, I refuse to live only from fear. That would be giving too much power to the very forces that seek to shrink me.

So, I flow. I laugh. I dance. I still take the trips. But I do so with the spiritual toolkit of a nomadic Taoist—traveling lightly, staying centered, flowing around obstacles, and sometimes…stopping altogether to let the storm pass.

And when I do pump the brakes, I do it mindfully—not from panic, but from presence.

Because fear isn’t just a stop sign. It can also be a guidepost, one that reminds me that caution and curiosity can coexist.

A New Kind of Travel Advisory

If I could broadcast a new kind of travel advisory for folks like me, it might say:

“Conditions may be unpredictable. Proceed with wisdom. Listen to your spirit. And if needed, pull over, rest, and remember who you are.”

That’s the Tao talking.

And I’m still listening.

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