The Haze

The peculiar burden of being a Black American in the USA is heavy in a way that you don’t fully recognize until you've left

I know I don’t have to tell any of you how much going on in the United States right now politically. The impact on communities who are directly targeted by the harmful policies of the second Trump administration becomes more and more real with every Executive Order that sounds more like something out of George Orwell’s 1984 than real life. None of the damage that this administration is doing in the lives of real people and in communities that are the most marginalized should be normalized.

I work every day on my radio show for SiriusXM so am steeped in the firehose of bad news and chaos most of the time. I didn’t move abroad to Palermo because of Donald Trump, but when my visa-stamped passport came in the mail the second week of February 2025–giving me the green light to start my expat life–it felt like destiny and divine timing. My first nine months abroad have provided me with the level of clarity that comes with distance and some profound insights on the consequences and impact of being a Black American woman. But now I’m one that no longer lives in America.

First, it was physical changes. I ceased carrying a persistent pain in the back of my shoulders and neck. That pent of tension, it seems, was created by always bracing for something–a racist comment by Trump or any given person I interacted with– disappeared almost immediately. Until the pain went away, I hadn’t realized that I had been living with that tension consistently for most of my adult life.

Some of the tension isn’t caused by racism and the microaggressions and hostility that comes with living in America as a Black person. Some of it is from factors like hustle culture and the constant pressure to make money, consume, and be a master of productivity to keep up with the Jones.

There are also less-considered factors, like the quality of the food in Europe, the outlook on life, how they intentionally take a month-long holiday (often for the entirety of August), and the pace of their daily lives being a lot slower than in many parts of the United States. But there is something deeper happening in me and I have been spending my whole tenure abroad trying to name it.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately about why I feel so different physically, mentally, and emotionally since leaving the United States. In one podcast conversation with Black Expat Stories that I recorded only a month after my move, the host Courtney Bowden (who left for the United States to live abroad in Mexico) mentioned that she started describing the easing of physical tension and stress leaving our bodies as “the haze.”

That “haze” is the fog that clouds your vision and blocks your ability to live without the constant threat of conflict, contempt, or hostility. Sure, sometimes that hostility comes in the form of a racist comment, but honestly, it’s rarely something so explicit. It’s the air of contempt that follows Black Americans wherever you go, whether it’s to run errands at the local pharmacy or whether you are in a professional setting. The haze blocks your ability to simply exist and be.

Racism isn’t only a racist or offensive comment, it is the condescension, the rudeness, the dirty looks and the contempt that is so obvious to people who have been othered by generations. It’s the air of superiority.

We know how it feels to be different and we are reminded of that every day. Of course, it’s been so much worse since Donald Trump came down that escalator in 2015, normalized racism as part of his campaign strategy, and gave every one of his supporters the permission to be loud and proud about how much they dislike or even hate anyone who isn’t white.

What I am experiencing living abroad is the absence of the contempt I’ve always felt moving through the United States as a Black woman. In Palermo, I can just exist. I can live in my body and go through my day and mostly I’m reminded that I don’t speak fluent Italian or Sicilian, not that I am Black. I am not saying that racism doesn’t exist abroad, but it feels so different to live outside of the United States.

In a piece for EBONY, Jonathan Giles spoke with three Black American expats who had relocated to Playa del Carmen, Mexico. One woman, La’Nita Johnson, who left the United States to live in Playa described the freeing feeling of living outside the United States as, “Mexico isn’t perfect, but there’s not this haze of suspicion that follows your Blackness. Here, you’re not always wondering ‘Why don’t they see me?’”

Even before Donald Trump won his first election, a piece in The Root outlined the 5 Places Black People Can Move to When They’ve Had Enough of America. So this conversation isn’t a new one. America’s history is unique, and the way in which racial hostility manifests is different—and often comes in the form of violence or systemic neglect that feels violent.

As a Black American woman, I’ve lived my whole life carrying the weight of our history and that violence on my shoulders—the suspicion, the stares, the policies, and the daily reminders that in America, my very existence is often seen as a problem. It’s the background noise of contempt that seeps into my nervous system until it feels normal. Except it’s not normal. It’s the haze.

There’s a psychological safety I feel in Palermo that I have never experienced in my entire life. The peculiar burden of being a Black American at home is heavy in a way that you don’t fully recognize until it’s gone (or you’ve left).

When the haze lifts, you can breathe differently. Your body relaxes in ways you didn’t realize it could. You were always bracing but now your mind is clear. You can walk around in the street and simply be. I had always wondered what that might be like, but had never lived it. Now I know. My mind is clearer and I can think more creatively. I’m out of survival mode. I don’t always have to make internal calculations about how I am being or am going to be perceived.

I no longer shrink myself to make everyone feel comfortable with my physical presence. I am American and my Italian isn’t great (yet), and everyone here is fine with that. Patient, even. I don’t have to bear my invisible armor that leads so many Black women to the grave as the result of hypertension and high blood pressure.

My body feels lighter. My spirit feels brighter. My mind feels calmer. I’ve been trying to articulate this feeling for eight months and now I understand. The clarity I have is something that people who are not Black get as a birthright. It’s a privilege to be able to exist in your own body without the constant haze of racism hovering overhead. I am finally free to live my life with more mental and emotional space to seek out joy, safety, peace, and a softness I was never able to access while living in my country of birth.

Zerlina Maxwell is the SiriusXM Senior Director of Progressive Programming and host of “Mornings with Zerlina,” available weekday mornings at 7am ET on SiriusXM Channel 127

Here on The Inner Work Dispatch she writes about life, healing, mental health and transformation as an expat. Join the journey here: