I'm hurting and I'm full of outrage but that's been there for generations

An unidentified protester takes a knee during a San Jose protest after George Floyd's murder.

TW: Generational racial trauma

This past week, folks have reached out to check on me and others have asked me what they can do to help the greater Black community. I need to say this,
Right now as a black person, as a mother, as a queer person, as an activist, I'm not in a good place.

Usually after police officers have murdered a black person, to get through the pain and the grief and the fear, I tell myself, "our ancestors survived much worse." However this time around it hits different.

We are in the midst of a pandemic, where people are dying because of an infection of the lungs and yet a man was suffocated until he died and those who protested his death were sprayed with tear gas while the Commander and Chief said protesters would be shot. Tell me how this differs from Governor Wallace? Tell me how this differs from what my mother saw during the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's where we just wanted to be equal? Tell me how this differs from my grandmother fleeing the south only to migrate to LA where the cops picked their officers at Klan rallies? As cities burn I remember when I was seven years old, living in LA where smoke and ash and soot competed with the smog after the Rodney King protests. Tell me how what we are seeing today is different. Show me progress. Show me change. But you can't because, this is America.



A white man needed to approach my mother and I yesterday (with no face mask!) to tell us how he too had experienced racism (reverse racism still isn't real) and how ashamed he was of the officer's conduct who killed George Floyd. And then he said, "wow, is this 2020?!" He told us the idea of thinking one race is superior is ludicrous. These words did not need to be spoken to us, two black women who were trying to deliver surgical masks to black men so they would feel safe when they go outside since black men that wear bandannas are not seen as keeping themselves safe in the eyes of others but obviously violent criminals who one can justify shooting on site. Two black women who haven't slept in days because of the news cycle and the endless calls checking on our brothers and sisters across the world. Two black women who, for just a moment, wanted to think about anything else than the fact that we live in a country that wished we didn't exist. Yet, he felt this was his opportunity to approach the only black people he saw. Sir, if you were a black person you would understand that nothing has changed. America was built on rape and pillaging and white supremacy. So of course this is happening. Violence is the currency of oppression.

Tell me now, after how many blogposts, trainings, curriculums, tweets, Facebook posts and late night deep conversations, what do I say?

Black Lives Mattering is still up for debate and I'm tired, I'm scared and I don't understand how folks are posting about their day without mentioning us. How are people able to breathe without fighting back an anxiety attack? How are people not too afraid to leave their homes? And I remember, as worse as this moment feels compared to all the countless others, this is my reality. Fear and disgust and anguish of these killings is not just for a singular occurrence. This is trauma that for many of us, is a corner stone of our identity. Black death is far more understandable in our community than black life. The expectancy that we will survive going to these protests are the same odds as not making it home after a jog, playing video games, picking up a bag of Skittles, or even survive sleeping in our homes for the night. And this trauma is not just our own, from seeing the posted and re-shared (countless times) videos. This trauma is in our DNA. After generations of being ripped from our homeland only to be transported here in chains and forced to raise crops and white children. This trauma is woven into the structure of who we are, and yet so many say they are shocked. It is a privilege to be shocked rather than hardwired to endure this trauma.

"It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have." -James Baldwin

I'm going to need us to all get on the same page. White people speak to your kids (see previous post) and keep speaking to them. Watch the news that has my mother up all night. Watch that with your kids and ask them, is this a riot or revolution? Why do the words we use matter? And show them this tweet from Emmy Scott, (who did an episode of my podcast).

Discuss what it means and challenge the perception that has been placed in the minds of many, that black bodies are property that must be taken out when they do not comply to white ideals. Talk to them about race medicine, about how racism was used to justify slavery. Show them the images of the wounds on black bodies after being beaten on the plantation. Ask them what the Civil War was fought over and remind them that "states rights," like "property," and "identity politics" are all dog whistles for racism. Then, donate to protester's bail funds to show them that you put your money where your mouth is.

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." -James Baldwin

"There comes a point where silence is betrayal." -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I need you to stop privately messaging me to tell me all you're doing, tell your white followers and friends and family. I need real allies in my life not fair weather ones.  And I dare take Dr. King's words further to mean, if you aren't talking to the people with the power to obliterate the system of racism once and for all, you are being silent.  Stop valuing property, respectability and civility more than my life. (NPR's Code Switch has a fantastic episode about this). Stop calling me one of the good ones because I raise my pen instead of my fists. Stop seeing my plea for change as optional. We are in the midst of a moment that can lead to true equality and while to alot of you that may make you uncomfortable, discomfort is a temporary emotion you can recover from, no one can recover from being murdered. Knowing that your word will no longer automatically be believed because you have less melanin in your skin and the police will no longer be your hired hit man, I'm gonna need you to get in line, and not by me. I know you see me as nothing, but your white family and friends will gather you- at least if they are doing the things they are secretly telling me they are doing.

Black people didn't invent racism, so again I say, white people fix what you have created, even though you benefit financially, it is time for equality, once and for all. I'm scared for my sons, I find myself counting down the days until the police see them as a threat. How much time do we have left? Will it be the virus or racism that takes their life? Perhaps it will be both and then they will be a hashtag and I will be tear gassed and told that I am guilty of destroying property. I want the outrage of what's happening and the fear that, "this could be my son," that energy-that is the energy I need to see from white people on my timeline and in my life. Stop stopping me on the street to tell me how upset you are, DO SOMETHING because, "[t]here are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain." -James Baldwin 

Rest in Paradise:
Ahmaud Arbery
Breonna Taylor
Nina Pop
Tony McDade
George Floyd