I purged the words below in a stream of consciousness, in the morning, without neither a coffee or a wasted letter. It tasted like bile, yet it was joy inside my tears, because a worthy route out of darkness will follow the light; everyone's light. Your light, her light, my light...
My anti-open letter
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I'm really not sure how I'm supposed to feel about anything that's troubling the United States Of America, when on a basic, human level...a life and liberty level, my entire existence is on crumbling ground. How should I feel about terrorist beheading people, when my life has been devalued below an animal? How can I really care about whether America should put boots on the ground in the Ukraine, when America has a boot to my neck and every neck of every person that looks like me.
They have not come for me, but they have come for me, because they've come for you and to them, you and I are the same, if we're black.
At the moment that I'm typing this, I'm also fighting back tears. I've actually failed, because they are tumbling down my face. It started when I signed a petition to get Walmart to release the store videotape of John Crawford, to show what happened when police shot him down for holding a pellet gun, in an open carry state. He was talking to his girlfriend and parents on the phone when he got gunned down. Imagine how they felt.
The sheer beast of burden of my basic existence, as a black man, is so heavy, it's nearly impossible to imagine. Yeah, it's nuanced-Black men commit lots of crime. Black people have the legacy of slavery. Black people have to stop the bullshit and love each other more. Black people need to pull their weight more. Black people need a balanced playing field to succeed- It's all of that and more.
But the fact that any white person can get a black man killed, by simply calling the police and telling them that the black guy has a gun and are waving it around, and the police will come and just shoot you on site, is beyond words. And that the judicial system doesn't seem to mind the killing of black men, by police, and that juries of non-black people rarely find any criminality in the killing of unarmed black men, by police, is just scary.
It's just a simple fact that America never intended for African Americans, it only intended for slaves from Africa. The political stalemate in Washington is such a simple byproduct of white men (and some women) on capital hill, still DISGUSTED by the fact that it's a black man as the president of the United States. That's it, not very difficult. They'll put the well being of everything at risk...the country, their constituents, everything, to try and make everything the black president does, fail.
It's coming up on 150 years since the abolishment of slavery and on so many levels, America STILL does not like black people. The world is filled with conflict, countries are divided by religion and ethnicities and have civil war between tribes...BUT I EXPECT MORE from America. You know why? I have no choice. Where am I to go? This is my home. This is the country that was built by the slave labor from my forefathers. Not like, in biblical times, but 150 years ago. I've got sweat equity in this damned country and won't be run off.
I'm really not sure how I'm supposed to feel about anything that's troubling the United States Of America, when on a basic, human level... a life and liberty level, my entire existence is on crumbling ground.