I started this originally as a Facebook post but quickly realized I had a lot to say; so, now it's a blog post. Here goes....
I'm trying very hard not to boil over but I promise I'm simmering. With each new racial discussion that arises be it the #BlackLivesMatter or now the #Beyonce superbowl performance, I become more and more disheartened and discouraged. One thing I cannot tolerate, especially in this new found age of the internet where we have access to a wealth of information, is the perpetuation of ignorance and false information. Please stop looking at history through only one lens. Depending on your vantage point, things appear very differently. Remember,one man's terrorist is another man's savior.
So to be clear, I support and am grateful to the #BlackPantherParty and Malcom X just as much as I am to Martin Luther King, Jr., Ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis and a host of others. If I endured the life of my grandmother, great grandmother, etc. and witnessed what they did I'm not certain whose footsteps I would've followed.
As I think about the myriad of injustices, the lynchings, the bombings and senseless cruelties and tragedies that spanned years I tremble and boil inside. As a mother of two now I think of how Rosa Parks must have felt while the KKK threw bombs into her home and burned crosses in her yard all while her children slept. My heart weeps and I ask myself if I would have been able to endure. I think I may have been a Black Panther and not the kind that actually existed but the ones America like to broad stroke paint. I think my fear for my husband and my kids would have driven me to pick up a gun and dare anyone to touch what I loved and cherished.
You see sometimes we get so caught up in being right and righteous that we forget we are human. I'm not righteous enough to say that I could watch men and women hang from a tree senselessly and watch families beg a justice system to help that refused to see them as equal. I'm not righteous enough to say that I could endure that peacefully. Why? Because my heart races and blood boils just reading about it.
Even today as I struggle with all the recent tragedies over the past years, I ask myself how do I fight this battle and how should I contribute to the narrative. No, I don't believe all cops are bad and no I don't believe all white people are either, but I also cannot ignore the systemic and historical issues that keep us divided. I can't ignore the chosen language used when it comes to my people either.
So, what do I want from White America? What I want from every one on earth...love, accountability, and respect. If I answer honestly I don't feel these things. If I answer honestly I feel like an abused and battered wife who you keep telling needs to move on because that beating is in the past and you still love me.
So when I say I may have been a Black Panther, understand that doesn't mean I want to be a terrorist, anti-American, or kill cops. It means I understand the hurt, the frustration, the fear, but most importantly the resolve to make a change for those who can't fight.
