{Rough write}
It is hard to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and feel safe with my own reflection.
It is hard to cross the street at night without girls holding their purses and one another tighter and tighter to their hips than my jeans are to my own.
It is hard to watch the television when every major broadcasting network keeps flashing by a face of a fallen sister or brother on every damn commercial break.
It is hard to be filled by anxiety every time I pass a cop on the streets wondering if maybe, just maybe, they might see me and pay more attention to the shade of my hands than the number on the speedometer across from them.
This is how I think I would feel if I could understand,
If I could fit into their shoes and not walk a mile but walk a lifetime.
I am apart of a community that chooses to ignore statistics unless they fall into their own political agenda.
And I blend into the crowd with my pink cheeks and shallow vocal chords,
Straining to help,
Straining to speak,
And wondering if I did work up enough courage to refrain from the worry of being exiled from those whose appearances match my own...would it really matter?
Could the words that come out of my lungs like leather petal daisies really mean something, really turn a scar back into smoothed over skin, really turn a few heads, touch a few hearts?
I stop to take a look at the chaos disguised as american society around me,
I scream “look at me” but nobody can hear me over the argument of whose life holds more value.
I scream “listen to me” but everyone's too busy typing their latest Facebook self-published hatred.
I scream “do you see me” but bodies are swarming too fast to check their own privilege, let alone mine.
I scream “do you hear me” but everybody is too busy listening for the sound of gunshots in the rain.
I scream, I scream, I scream, but everybody's backs are turned and nobody's ears are open.
The air around me is almost too full with noise that it begs the point of combustion to wait for one more name, one more body, one more life, just one more….
I fill whatever air is left with my screams and imagine what you would say to me if you could just look into my eyes and listen to my voice:
This isn’t your fight.
Because I’m supposed to be on your side?
You’re ignorant.
Because I don’t agree with you?
You’re wrong.
Because you’re right?
Well, let me tell you, you are right about something…
All lives DO matter.
That means not just ours.
Not just the better off,
the got-away-with-its,
the Yes sir’s.
Not just the names on the 401Ks,
the names on the mortgage,
the names on the end of the year bonus,
the names on the school plaques,
the names on the credits,
the names on the television.
You and I have a safety net that so many will never be able to fall into.
You and I do not know the feeling of every inch of a knives blade the way they do.
You and I do not know what it is to be a Black American.
I do not pretend that I know their life, their pain, their stories.
I do not pretend that my life has more value than their own.
I do not pretend that our privileges in life are inherently equal.
I do, acknowledge the humanity between all of us.
How dare we look at fallen lives and debate whether their race, upbringing, or occupation somehow justify murder
How dare we continue to bathe in the sweet ignorance of the racist culture that the rest of our world is still swimming in
How dare we continue to live so divided, so segregated, so scared, and so hateful and call ourselves united
I am not oppressed. I can wake up, look at myself in the mirror, roam around the sidewalks, watch at primetime, and drive on the boulevard completely comfortably. And so can you.
So I say to you, what is hard, is to sit here and look at you who are bug eyed and full with too much pride and a certain denial of your abhorrence, and scream to you that right now,
It is hard to feel helpless in this fight.
It is hard to not be able to get through to you.
It is hard to know you will never see the state of the affairs for the way they are.
It is hard to be an ally to a body of people so in need and to know that you can’t be.
But I can’t believe to understand how hard it is, and neither can you, to not have this privilege.
It is for them that I scream.
