Yesterday I tried to change my skin. I closed my eyes, squeezing out every ounce of light from my corneas, wishing I could peel off this brown bodysuit called melanin.
Maybe if we were all the same color we’d have no reason to hate. Right?
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At 6 am I scroll through my Twitter timeline, as I usually do, when I fall upon a hashtag; #AltonSterling
I’ve seen a number of these viral videos in recent years:
I watched as Eric Garner cried “I can’t breathe” while NYPD officers held him in an illegal choke-hold.
I watched in North Charleston, South Carolina when an officer gunned down 50- year old Walter Scott was running for his life.
I watched an underage girl was dragged in her bathing suit in McKinney, Texas.
Oh yeah, and there was the other young girl, in Spring Valley, SC, viciously dragged out of her school desk for acting out in class.
…but this one was different. Like a dam with nothing left to give, I broke.
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I don’t like tears.
Mascara smudges, eyeliner fades away and before I know it I look like one of Bozo’s long lost cousins.
I think about the many lives that were lost to gun violence this year and then, just as quickly, I forget.
At midnight I prepare to end my day, the same way I had began it. I scroll through my Twitter once more and there it was. Another hashtag.
#FalconHeightsShooting paired with #PhilandoCastille
Twice in less than 24 hours I was reminded of a pain I had tried to forget. Between gun violence and law enforcement egoism, my thoughts are scrambled. My heart races at 90 beats per minute as I try to put into words how I feel, and all I can say is this:
I don’t want to close my eyes tonight. Maybe if I keep them open long enough, another life won’t be lost as I blink.
I can’t say with certainty why these men were murdered in cold blood. I can’t say that their encounters with those cops were without cause, but when will the senseless deaths come to an end?
When there is nothing but a pattern of black men and women being slaughtered, what else is one left to think? What if you woke up in fear that the next victim was the person you loved most?
They tell me this is a post-racial society. They say, “I don’t see color.” Hmmm. Is that to say that you’d rather not address the “brown” elephant in the room? Let’s just cut out the chapter about the taboo history of this land, a history that that expects us to instinctual hate our fellow man.
I have experienced firsthand what that hatred can do to one’s heart, and roots that deep take centuries to uproot.
I want no part of it.
Racism is very much alive, but we can all do our part to obliterate its remains for good. If you see this statement as false, then you are also a part of the problem.
“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life” Proverbs 4:23
Why don’t we just stop killing each other? Who are we to decide another’s length of time on this earth?
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Have you ever stood in the shower for hours, hoping the scorching water would wash away the melanin?
I have.
Then I remembered that my “black is beautiful”and I will live fearlessly in the skin I’m in.
