I am usually not one to use Facebook as a platform where I share my own voice. I might repost things I find funny or exciting, artistic and beautiful, reassuring. Repost about issues that are relevant and important that reflect my thinking and beliefs, but when it comes to my own voice on this particular platform, I have been silent. But tonight, on this grave night, when my hands and heart tremble, there is no other time that might merit greater a reason to speak out, than this. We all know what happened months ago. We all know what happened tonight. We are all reacting in some capacity. Im thankful for the voices I can resonate with, the words I can snap to. It reminds me that I am not alone, that we are not alone. That we matter. And while I am hurt and angered by those voices that are dead set that this man is innocent, that this circumstance is not about race, these arguments are irrelevant to the matter and there is negative room to discuss that. Then there are those that believe they are not reacting at all. Those that have the power and privilege to look away. I would just like to say that your passivity might be the biggest reaction of them all. Neutrality is the greatest threat to a world that might one day be just and free to all. This silence perpetuates a system where accountability and responsibility are not required and tells those that believe that this is anything less than a tragedy, that they are right. There is no more room for passivity and complacency. There is no neutral where human rights are concerned ,only responsibility. This is not the time to police and criticize the reactions of a people beaten and broken down by a system in a country and society built on their backs and their blood. And please spare me arguments about how slavery is irrelevant. The institution of slavery helped create a system where black bodies are seen as sub human and where unlawful black death is justified, rewarded and upheld socially, institutionally, and politically. This is the mess slavery and the violent distorted thinking and bloody actions that produced it ,made. Well stop talking about it when its residual effects are cleaned up. Tonight I am ill with sadness and trauma. I believed that maybe we might have made it a little farther than wed come before. I am pained to admit that I was sorely mistaken and am now perplexed by this massive question of where do we go from here. What do we do now? I may, we may, have been wrong in thinking our justice system would move away from its haunting history and surprise us with hope for the future, but I believe I am right about one thing: That this time is different. And the difference not being in a system that consistently fails us, but in us. This can not be put to bed. They wanted us to forget but we cannot allow them to bury us, to bury this. We must keep organizing, keep speaking, yelling, screaming, until we are heard. Marching, stomping, pounding, shaking the ground until the system has no choice but to break. And by we I mean all. This is not a Black issue this is a human issue as all violations of human rights are. We did not enslave ourselves. We need just as many bodies that helped get us here to help us get free. I live by this always and I will say it a dozen times over, The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion -Albert Camus I will be a rebellion. I will be a revolution. I hope yall with join me.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 06:57:13 +0000
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