Sick and tired of being sick and tired by Arienne Thompson, reporter for USA Today newspaper Do you know how exhausting it is to be black in America? Do you have any idea? Do you know what its like to be … ... followed in a store. … mistaken for the help. ... petted like a dog because your hair is interesting. … told to get over the wholesale trade and trafficking of your ancestors? I do. And so do millions of other black Americans. Rich and poor. Uneducated and those with a Ph.D. Famous and anonymous. We are exhausted. We are tired. We cant breathe. We can no longer bear the weight of seeing our men, our Americans, our husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins humiliated, profiled, emasculated, choked, dragged and shot, day in and day out. We are sick of needing new hashtags. #RumainBrisbon. #TamirRice. #MichaelBrown. #EricGarner. #TrayvonMartin. #WhosNext. We are sick of hollow apologies and press conferences and presidential speeches and gone-toosoon funerals and distraught parents wailing in the streets. We are exhausted. Arent you? One of us, Chris Rock, is famous and hes tired, and hes saying so. Hes tired of having to justify black excellence vis-à-vis white approval. Of having to prove that we deserve to be players socially, politically and culturally in this country. A country built, in great part, on our sweat. To say Obama is progress is saying that hes the first black person that is qualified to be president. Thats not black progress. Thats white progress. Theres been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years, he mused during a New York magazine interview. The question is, you 2 know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Lets hope America keeps producing nicer white people. Rock is right about all of it. Every single word. Especially that bit about smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children. Did you catch that? Do you get as tired as I do when thinking about those smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children that wont make it to their next birthday because America has fallen behind in the production of nicer white people? Has your fatigue set in yet? Regular, everyday, non-famous black Americans are plenty tired, too. I asked my friends and followers on Facebook to describe what its like to be black and tired in America. They are exhausted because… ... I am tired of being tired. What we are feeling is likely the same anger and disbelief felt by prior generations when they marched for civil rights. We have been pampered and sheltered and made to believe we have come so far. Nah, this country is standing still. … Being Black in America is like walking through an ice storm: Its cold, isolating, and exhausting. Youre not sure if youre gonna make it and you cant see whats coming for you. ... Tomorrow, Ill once again be in an office with my peers, who live in a completely different reality and have no concept of my true feelings and pain. Ill smile and say Im doing great. … I used to play sports in my front yard with friends from the neighborhood. On a few occasions, cars of white men would drive by yelling at me — the only African American there — to go back to Africa, or you monkey, or the racists would just drive by screaming nigger! Did you catch that? A child, now a man, being called a nigger for having the audacity to play. In his own yard. In this country. In this century. How dare he. How dare we. I am so, so tired. Are you? Roberta Flack - Tryin Times https://youtube/watch?v=QdYNc0vYoAs Living courageously and victoriously, Elaine Lee laneybugg@aol
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 18:58:55 +0000
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