I’ve Seen My Brother Die a Hundred Times. I’ve Seen My Sister Die a Hundred More.
And where were you? Where have you been all this time?
Ever since the protests have erupted all across this country, even beyond our own make-America-fascist-again borders, several people in my life have reached out with this same burning question:
“What are your thoughts on this?”
Like every other black person beyond the age of 5 or so, when we can comprehensively engage in dialogue, this question was no stranger. And yet, a wave of familiar anger and distaste pierced my tongue before I bit it, chewing on a friendlier response before opening my mouth. I’ve touted the same friendly things I’ve always said to avoid enticing the tsunami of White Guilt washing over so many, like a fiercely cold blanket smothering you in your lifelong complacency. So, I say the same things over and over again:
“Yes, it is terrible! I am so sad that these things have happened and I hope this sparks real change.”
And each time I say this, I gulp back my fiery indignation, burning my chapped lips as they crack against my rage. Because this ain’t my first rodeo. This isn’t new to me and yet, you feel as though it is new to you. It feels as though you’ve finally been called to arms in a battle for human rights when I’ve already been fighting this war, having been hacked at and bearing the scars of my forefathers who cried out in bloodied shackles as they laid in their own piss and shit on a boat to Freedomland™.
I’ve been angry since Trayvon Martin was murdered in cold blood eight years ago and a repugnant killer walked away with his head held high, auctioning the very gun that took that child’s life away as he screamed out for his mother. I’ve been angry since I was called a nigger behind my back while waiting tables on a nescient, ancient couple because I couldn’t magically make their food appear in front of them quicker. I’ve been angry since a 6’1” 230lbs man told me he’d be scared of me if he saw me in an alleyway. I’ve been angry since I’ve been told “black women just aren’t attractive” or “we just don’t get many black applicants” or “you speak so well.” I’ve been angry for as long as I’ve been black because the world has been just as angry at me.
At the age of 7 years-old was the first time that I felt this deep, unshakeable anger. At that tender, innocent age, my parents had to explain that, just a few hours from where we lived in Texas, James Byrd Jr. was grabbed by three white supremacists, tied to the back of their truck, and dragged on asphalt, ripping his flesh and painting the pavement with his blood till his right arm and head were ripped clean off. I was angry when I found out that, in James’ death, it was the first time that white men were sentenced to death for killing a black person because it wasn’t the first time it had been done.
But now, the tendrils of anger have spread into the unsuspected: those who are feeling angry for the very first time. Between the culmination of a fantastical failure of 45’s presidency, the 100,000+ unnecessary lives lost due to unregulated social distancing guidelines, and 30+ million unemployed, people have picked up their sword and shield against an ancient system of racism that is entrenched into the American way. It’s so entrenched that fighting against it, fighting for my right to live in my own skin has somehow been made into a political statement. However, I believe that this defining moment is marked by something that is horrifyingly unique:
White America finally got to witness a long, agonizing act of violence on a black body.
They got to witness an event where there was, undoubtedly, an act of superfluous murder from start to finish. There was no doubt like in the Trayvon Martin case where we only had the killers’ words to go from. There was no doubt like in the Bettie Jones and Quintonio LeGrier case where the killer’s words were so moving that a judge reversed a $1 million settlement to the LeGrier family. There was no doubt like in Breonna Taylor’s case where there still remains no justice so there will be no peace.
In this integral moment, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was a modern-day lynching. And, unlike Ahmaud Arbery’s lynching, this was done by the people who are supposed to protect and serve citizens of the United States. In Ahmaud’s case, in Trayvon’s case, and in James’ case, there was some degree of separation for you. The animals who killed these black men could be easily dismissed as being just “crazy, ass-backward racists.”But that’s not the whole story. They’ve been indoctrinated with the same, festering wound of deeply-rooted racism that, unchecked, spreads like a cold, hungry wildfire that devours any institution that it can reach. And it’s sunk its gnarled, persistent fingers into the same institution that trains the boys in blue to hunt my brothers and sisters down till we just can’t breathe anymore.
For you, this was a truth that maybe you’d read about when the Black Lives Matter movement first erupted out of the ashes of failed justice in 2013. But, this has always been my truth. Eric Garners’ truth was my truth then and LaVena Johnson’s truth is my truth now. He was my brother, she was my sister, and I am them. I’ve experienced both the outright racism that reduced my humanness to nothing more than a conglomerate of negative characteristics and I’ve experienced the microaggressions of people touching my hair without consent. And, indubitably, I’ve experienced everything in between. You haven’t experienced these truths like we have until you were slapped in the face with it on May 25th, 2020.
It is painful that it took something so incredibly tragic for you to believe my truth, for you to actively engage and hear me for the very first time in your life. My truth has been my everyday experience but, for you, it was “too political for our company to talk about” or “something we shouldn’t discuss at dinner” or “only a black thing.” Now, you’re not only seeing my truth but your tapping into it and, quite honestly, you may not be ready to hear it. You’re tapping into over 400 years of oppression that’s bursting at the very seams of my being as though these truths haven’t been screamed into your void of ignorance for eons of wasted lifetimes. So, your complacency is showing.
Your complacency is showing when you’re just now asking your black colleagues about policy issues and their truths, placing the burden of education on them instead of researching on your own. You were complacent when you didn’t address your friends or family’s uneducated sentiments, helping plant the seeds of grotesque ideas even further. You were complacent when you didn’t even acknowledge how strange it might be to not have anyone who looks like me on your team, in upper management, or on your board. And, you were especially complacent when you didn’t do anything about it because your voice is stronger than mine, and we’ve needed it to echo in conversations that you didn’t have the guts to have until now.
Hopefully, your previous complacency bothers you and makes you feel ashamed. It might even make you upset because it also makes me feel completely sorrowful that we needed this kind of chaos to bring you to the table I’ve been forced to sit at and fed scraps. I’m completely melancholy that, in this disarray, both my bestfriend and my mother lost cousins in the riots on Sunday, June 7th, 2020 — two more black lives in two different cities snuffed out in violent turmoil on the very same night. I’m mournful and I’m grieving because it took you so long to get here with me.
But I’m glad that you’re finally here.
I’m just so incredibly glad that you’re finally here with me and that you’re listening in ways that I’ve never imagined. You’re reading with me, shouting with me, kneeling with me, and donating with me to amazing, mission-driven organizations to make an unprecedented change. You’re standing with me, marching with me, holding hands with me, and crying with me. I’ve been crying for so long, watching myself die over and over again, seeing myself cry out for my mama as all my hopes and dreams go black before your eyes on the screen of your choice. I’m now crying tears of hopefulness that actual change might happen because the time has come where my truth is now finally becoming your truth as well. And, I want to thank you for that.
Thank you for finally being here with me. I’m proud of you for recognizing the power of this moment. But, please, for once, understand that it’s ok for me to feel, not only pride but also disappointment. That it’s ok for me to be as joyful as I am agitated. And, while I watch us dance this blithesome dance of togetherness, understand that I will always be asking myself,
Where were you? Where have you been all this time?
