Can you feel me?
Since I left the states for one month, I feel like a stranger who is watching my home struggle with its identity as it sits dangling on the pedestal of the international eye. As I grapple to find understanding, answers, and empathy, I read through articles, FB posts/memes, J Cole and Kendrick Lamar lyrics, Audre Lorde, Langston Huges, Angela Davis, and Patricia Hill Collins pieces on pain, anger, justice, police brutality, immoral policies, gun violence, protests, white allies, black men, black lives, the schools to prison pipeline, racism, privilege, and more systems of oppression I can’t swallow in one day, much less a life time. Can you feel me? We are exhausted from hollow discussions and all lives matter debates. We watch them use black culture and the love of black food and music and disregard the very one’s who create it. We yell out of anger and try to salvage pieces of humanity. We watch politicians scapegoat black and brown bodies to ensure the safety of American jingoist. We perpetuate ignorant, pre-conceived notions through our deafening silence. We become bystanders who posts on our facebook once a year, and march when the occasion calls for it - where the fuck are we when the change counts? Where the fuck are we in the shadows of pain and silence? Where the fuck are we when it comes time to petition, deliberate, vote, defend, and fight? I can’t see you. Can you fuckin’ feel me?