AMERICA is a very deep place when it comes to real, honest, and courageous conversations about race and racism, be it the present or the past. Or, rather, many people are either too afraid, too emotionally and spiritually underdeveloped, or just plain too ignorant of history to have real, thoughtful, healing, and solution-oriented talk. I am respectfully asking all of you, regardless of your race or culture or however you identify yourself, to read this facebook post by Tarana Burke, one of the realest posts Ive read to date, with the new film 12 YEARS A SLAVE as her starting point. It is her truth, and the truth of many. And lets talk right here on social media about this, instead of people going numb and silent as we often do whenever racism is brought up. Nothing ever will change if you are not part of the conversation and solutions around making change real and lasting. And we must be able to listen to and hear each other, even when it aint so comfortable to do so: *deep breath* (this is gonna be long) I needed to chill out and decompress a bit after the last 72 hours. Between the racist iPhone debacle, 12 years a Slave and hearing my white, college-aged neighbor yelling at his black friend ...THIS NIGGER!! and hearing that friend laugh hysterically...I was getting full. Halloween ALWAYS sucks to me, but social media has made it that much worse in recent years with the constant stream of racist photos from around the globe. The Trayvon/Zimmerman halloween costume made my stomach turn, but also it brought me back to what I was feeling this week. Everybody that knows me knows that my Blackness is palatable. I like it that way. Thats an intentional choice, but holding that position and being as *Blackity-Black, Black, BLACK* as I am is painful at times. Watching 12 Years a Slave, while it wasnt as harsh as I expected, was HARD! I loved that the director held the audience in the hardest moments without flinching. I loved that he never made a clear cut White Savior (and I dont count dude who came and got him bc *only* a white man could have) and I loved that he shed more light than Ive seen in other movies on enslaved Black women. I walked out of the movie though having one of those moments when I am hyper-aware of my blackness. I dont like being around white people when I have experiences like that but I was most struck by the Black people in the movie theater. Now, this is SUPER judgmental, and I apologize early for that. But my friends and I sat for about 15-20 minutes after that movie trying to hold it together. We talked each other through the roughest scenes in the film and we commiserated afterward about white supremacy and the myth of post-racial america. I dont know what other Black folk did - but I know what I didnt see. And I didnt see anything close to that. The feeling I had was that folk were moved but *re-moved* maybe its a survival tactic, I know Im judging. But it also made me think of how I keep hearing folk say that they are tired of movies about slavery - huh? We cannot remove ourselves from that pain. We cannot simply shake our heads at the trauma and be entertained alone. I get not wanting to endure a movie like 12 Years...bc its too much - bc that shows a connection to the pain - but we cant dismiss it as another slave movie and go on about our lives. There is so much more to say here - but Im looking at all I wrote and its too much already. My point is this: (1) Go see this movie and take your children. (2) Stop making white folk comfortable in their racist and white supremacist actions and ideas. (2) Dont be apologetic about your BLACKNESS. Not now not EVER! Ill just leave youll with the words of my sistren Yaba Blay: I dont want to live in a post-racial society. I want to live in a post-racist one. Theres a difference.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 16:54:25 +0000
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