“History, despite it’s wrenching pain, cannot be unlived; but, if faced with courage, need not be lived again,”– Maya Angelou
As the inhabitants of the US once again face the uncomfortable reality of yet another dead, unarmed Black boy, it’s clear to me that we are all living in a warped version of Groundhog Day. We are all trapped in a cycle that we most likely will never escape because we as a nation lack the heart and courage to talk openly and tenderly about our ugly truths. Truths that exist because of people long dead, ugly truths that we all live with today.
Instead we tell ourselves that race doesn’t matter, we tell that brand new lie that we are “colorblind”; those of us who point out that racial disparities are real are told to “stop our race baiting bullshit” as a reader recently told me on the BGIM Facebook page. Or worse yet we are told that we as Black people are responsible for the ills that befall us, that our children deserve to be shot down in the streets and left out like roadkill because we did not govern ourselves accordingly. We weren’t acceptable nor respectful enough thus we bring this pain upon our own heads.
Yet how can we tell another mother, that her son earned his savage killing at the hands of the local cops in Ferguson, MO. On a week when Michael Brown should have been picking out classes, his parents will instead be picking out his final resting place and fighting the national media’s compulsion which frames Black men as either devils or saints. Never fully acknowledging the range of humanity that exists within all of us and most certainly the range of humanity that exists within Black people.
A humanity that feels so deeply, because we know that we are all just one or two degrees of separation away from this pain that Michael Brown’s family is feeling. A humanity that took to social media to hold each other and share space and yet found itself mocked. A humanity that met on the streets of Ferguson, MO to gather as Black people do in times of trouble only to be met with police in riot gear whose presence and demeanor was not one of comfort but of escalation of tense feelings which brought about the predictable script that shows Black people as savages.
Even now as I write these words, words that have become so familiar yet so painful; young men being shot and killed should never become familiar. But how can we not deny the familiarity of these scenarios juxtaposed with the uncomfortable truth that these uncomfortable moments only affects some of us?
Perhaps one day we will find the courage that Maya Angelou spoke about, a courage that will allow us to rip these tattered bandages off these seeping, raw and bloody wounds of racism. Our only hope for survival involves more than an urgent care clinic approach to a disease that has ravaged this nation for so long.
Blessings to the Brown family and to all affected in Ferguson.
