Category: My Writings

I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired. As a middle class African American woman who has successfully straddled  both worlds, living the double conscious life W.E.B. Dubois wrote about in The Souls of Black Folk, I am personally offended and mentally and emotionally sick and tired of the constant, perpetual victimization and brutalization of African American CITIZENS in this country that I love. But now it is more than that. The grief and sometimes rage that I feel has turned to fear. Fear that I too will become  a victim of hate. Hate given and received. I don’t want to hate. We should all love and look out for  each other regardless of our skin color and despite and in spite of our flawed characters.

The post racial lie was always faux and a foe, the false illusion of racial harmony hiding the white sheets of hatred,  deeply tucked in the corners of our country’s distant but not so distant memories. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans have never been really free to move around in a country built on the blood, sweat, and tears of our ancestors. And after the election and presidency of America’s first African American president the scab of America’s sordid past of white supremacy and hatred was ripped wide open for the world to see. Live and in living color. 365 days a week, 24 hours a day around the world thanks to 24 hour news and social media. 

I’ve been called the N word twice in my life. Once in the late ’80s in junior high and once in the last year by a homeless or drugged out White woman who clearly thought her skin color granted her privilege to do so because of the present sociopolitical climate. But even that I was able to shake off, but what I can’t shake is the increased trauma and grief I face as a person of color in this country and the post traumatic stress disorder we have to endure individually and collectively. 

On many days I. CAN’T. BREATHE. 

I can’t breathe when I scroll my social media timelines and have to endure reading and watching another African American CITIZEN  being victimized and brutalized for merely BEING WHILE BLACK.

Being at Waffle House.

Being at Starbucks.

Being at Yale.

Being in Nordstrom.

Being at an AirB&B

Being in a car.

Being on a plane.

Being at a golf club.

Being at school.

Standing.

Sitting.

In distress.

Stranded on the side of a road in a broken car.

Walking across the parking lot.

Walking in the neighborhood.

Wearing a hoodie.

Living.

Breathing.

Just BEING.

Remember, just as all cops are not bad and all white people are not bad, the same applies to Black people. There is no excuse for the excessive force and brutalization of African Americans. NO excuse. Stop blaming the victim and perpetuating the cycle of hate towards people of color that are embedded within the social and institutional foundations of this country that I love in spite of its flaws. 

We have to get it right, America. Come together just as bitter torn families have to. If not, our country will not be able to withstand the test of time.

Author’s Note: since I wrote this on 7/7/16, we have had the #Dallas tragedy where police officers unfortunately lost their lives. Two wrongs don’t make a right and vigilante justice undermines and takes the focus off the movement, which is about bad cops killing African Americans for any and every reason under the sun. Please understand, our outrage stems from the fact that no BAD COPS are being held accountable for taking black lives. We are not anti-cop. This is about the #civilrightsmovement.

New blood and ancestral blood shed on American soil are crying out for justice–the blood shed by all police brutality victims, as well as our American ancestors (white and black) who lost their lives fighting for equal rights and the right to be judged by the content of our character and not our skin color.

For any white person who sits on their pedestal of white privilege to sit idly by and not do anything about what is going on in this country, not only is the blood of all these AMERICAN citizens on your hand, but the blood of the country is on your hands (and now, innocent police officers). You are killing our country with your silence, negating any progress towards racial equality we may have had.

This is the year 2016, and we should not be living like we were during slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Era. These repeated acts of unpunished, murderous violence against African AMERICAN citizens by cops, who swore to serve and protect the community, is DOMESTIC TERRORISM, GENOCIDE, and MODERN DAY LYNCHING, whose ugly underbelly has been brought to light because of the presence of cell phone cameras. As a nation, we condemn terrorism, but then want to pick and choose what type of terrorism. These police brutality killings are terrorizing our communities, instilling fear that any encounter with the police equals death AND destroying race relations in the country.

Good should always outshine bad. Good cops need to stand up and stand out against bad cops with race hate coursing through their veins. Silence is consent. You are ruining the reputation of respectable cops who do their jobs in upstanding, heroic ways everyday. As the saying goes, it only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the bunch. Stand up! Institutionalized racism is real! Get rid of the bad cops and the mentality and automatic assumption that all African Americans, especially our black men, are criminal. Who made cops the judge, jury, and executioners of black lives? We need to stand in the gap for victims. If you can be outraged by the treatment of lions, gorillas, and dogs, surely human life is more precious, right? Policies need to be changed to protect all parties involved, not just the cops and if those in charge aren’t willing to handle this crisis, we need to vote them out of office on a LOCAL level and vote in police commissioners and chiefs, prosecutors, and judges who will uphold the law for all. To do this, we need all Americans, white and black to stand up and demand change. No white or black silence allowed!

This country was built on the blood, sweat, and tears of African Americans. We didn’t come here by choice (although some of us were already here), we were stolen from our homeland to cultivate a land that was stolen from the Native Americans. Newsflash: Since we were brought here, we have just as much right or even more right to live here FREE without fear for our lives. How are we supposed to “get over” slavery when our people are brutalized everyday?

Even if their hearts, minds, and actions weren’t 100% in the right place, the framers of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, had the right idea: freedom and equal justice for all.

Above and beyond anything else, we are all human first. Race is a social construction. We have different layers of identities: ethnic, cultural, regional, national, and global, that make the world a beautiful, interesting, mix of diversity –our national identity is mixing into a stew or gumbo, not a melting pot in which we lose our individual flavors. Instead we are together while maintaining distinct characteristics. A future is coming where multiracial will be the American norm. We need to address the race problem in America before something even more tragic happens on a larger scale because of those fighting against progress, and learn from history, not repeat it. #altonsterling #philandocastile #blacklivesmatter #alvabraziel