A Time of Grief in the Black Community

#AltonSterling #PhilandoCastille #BlackLivesMatter

Innumerable emotions have been expressed over these past few days, after the senseless murders of two more African American men. One was murdered by a white police officer and the other an asian police officer. Both murders were caught on camera and went viral on social media.

The different opinions from people all over the world are being openly expressed, and are as widespread as the plethora of emotions.

Everyone has a different opinion. Everybody has a different experience and a different perception.

As an African American woman, I will share my experience, emotions, and feelings.

First and foremost, I'm not about to go shooting up anyone or anything. That's not how I operate. Am I angry? Hell yea. Am I saddened? Absolutely. Am I frustrated, confused, and a bit fearful? Certainly.

 I'm angry that my people seem to be targeted, feared, and treated like we are wild animals by other races, not just white people. The world has this image of black people as though we are uneducated, poor, thugs who have no sense of self pride. Many people in the world have this perception that black men are violent and dangerous and pose a threat to society; and that black women are nothing but walking sex toys. Many people treat us accordingly.

It has been passed down from generation to generation in non black cultures that black people are inferior, less than, and have no value.

We all know that's a huge, stinking pile of bullshit. Yet, for some reason people still hold on to those true lies. 

I had to leave work yesterday because I was surrounded by white people who either didn't know what was going on, or who didn't care to know what was going on. It bothered me that when other fatal shootings have occurred, the office was lit with conversations about the innocent lives taken. But not one white person mentioned either of the viral videos of two black men being slaughtered for no apparent reason. That's why I have to scream that BLACK LIVES MATTER. Black lives matter because all lives are supposed to matter.

I sat at my desk spewing flames of silent anger, disgust, and defeat. After sitting in silence for a few hours, I decided that there was no point sending off such negative energy at work. I sent my supervisor an email about my emotional state, and took the rest of the day off to mourn and grieve for my brothers who had just been murdered.

Seeing these things over and over again, year after year, takes a toll on me. This is not new. This has been happening since we were forced to build this country on the cotton fields. The oppression of black people is nothing new. It keeps making me angry because I feel hopeless. I feel like our people are so divided, and so lost after 400 years of oppression, that things are not going to change much.

I saw a video of a white guy saying that black people need to stop killing each other and instead look to black billionaires to invest in black businesses. Well, it's not that simple. The black family structure has been ripped to shreds since slavery. Willie Lynch wrote in his letters about how destroying the black man, humiliating him, and dehumanizing him in front of his family was the first step towards keeping the slaves enslaved mentally and emotionally. There are so many small wars we're fighting that one blanket of a solution will not solve much.

There are layers to this shit Mr. white person who thinks he's doing us a favor by telling us how to fix ourselves. Thanks but no thanks. Our black children must first be educated on how to start a business before they can build one, then they must find the funds from wealthy investors willing to give them the resources. They must learn about credit, they must learn how to save and invest. But see, even when we've done that in the past, white men have found a way to deny us. They won't give us loans, they won't lend us credit. It's hard to start your own when you've never owned anything in the first place.

We don't come from long money like most of the white families. Would I love to see the black billionaires give and build? Absolutely, but honestly they probably feel like the low income black people won't appreciate what they give so why bother. Our people have to be educated and exposed to life outside of the inner city in order to see that there is more to life than a struggle.

There are generational cycles and curses that must be broken before we can expect black people to "get the white man's foot off of our necks." Our kids need both their mothers and fathers.Our kids need a quality education. Black families need to stick together and respect one another. There's so much work to be done.

But are we too far gone to do it? Have we gotten our degrees, moved out of the hood, and forgotten about the black people we left behind? Are we reaching back and pouring back into the communities through mentorship and being faithful Alumni? Are we too good to be seen in the hoods and ghettos that raised us?

I don't have the answers. All I know is that I'm living the black experience in America. It's not a joke. It's a struggle. And even when I finally do get out of poverty, I'm still a member of the black community, and when she is hurting, I'm hurting too.

White privilege is a real thing. This white lady admitted to me that she knows she lives a privileged life. She said that she lives in a bubble and cannot understand the pain I was experiencing at work yesterday. All she could relate to was losing a loved one, but she couldn't understand the struggle as a whole, although she knows that it does exist. She didn't even know who Emmett Till was when I told her about his brutal murder. It was like she wanted to remain dumb, deaf, and blind so that she could go back home to her fantasy world and not be responsible for doing something to help.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate my frustration at the mistreatment of black people. I am black. My son is black. That means we are included in the discrimination that we potentially face living in America. My husband is black. That means that I too may possibly be on CNN mourning the loss of my husband, because a cop was programmed to shoot blacks first and ask questions later. When skin color is the only thing they see nothing else matters. Not our degrees, not our home in the suburbs, not our cars, suits, ties, philanthropy or job titles. None of that matters in this system that continues to oppress African Americans.

And it's sad because we still have to live daily as if racism doesn't exist. I still had to come to work smiling and faking like nothing ever happened yesterday.

That's why family is so important. If you have kids to love on, a spouse to take refuge to, parents to embrace, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces or nephews to laugh with, brothers and sisters and friends to cry with, please do so. Please hold on a little tighter at night. Laugh a little harder, love a little stronger. Family is all we have after we turn off the computers, put the cell phones, away, and turn off the television.

I don't know how to fix the problem, but I will do my part no matter how big or how small to continue to uplift, encourage and inspire black people to stay strong, stay aware, stay great, and stay in the books.