I’ve opened my laptop to begin the process of writing several posts. Nothing seems right. The world is on fire and everything is intense- heavy. There have been things happening that enrage me but I’m not sure how to talk about it here, in this space. I’ve always seen this space as a bit of a safe haven. A place where I can indulge in all of the things that make me feel my most authentic self. But, how do you do that when the brutality of the real world is knocking at your front door? Currently, my most authentic self is one filled with rage and sorrow, fear and exhaustion.
In the past few weeks we’ve seen a young black woman, Breonna Taylor, gunned down in her own bed asleep as the police served an unlawful warrant on the wrong address. We’ve seen video footage of the modern-day lynching of Ahmaud Abrey. Huxley Stauffer, a young Chinese adoptee was discarded by what he thought was his forever family when they decided their autistic son was too much to deal with. And, finally, we watched those excruciating 8 minutes it took for a police officer to murder George Floyd.
Dr. Martin Luther King wrote this in 1969 and I can’t help but think how little has changed in the last 50 years…
“ …I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense, our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”
Black lives matter. Black trans lives matter. Black love matters. Black mental health matters. Black art matters. Black dreams matter. Black future matters.
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