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Multigenerational Mom Muses on Twin Toddlers & Twenty-Something Daughters

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black lives matter

I am Here to Listen, Learn, Speak Out, and Support

I feel so strongly and ache so deeply for my friends, family, and students of color. I want to help. I want to do more. I can’t imagine the pain and exhaustion. The frustration. The fever.

I can’t imagine being a member of society, upholding a social contract with a society, that refuses to acknowledge my value and worth beyond my ability to fuel a sports franchise or fill a quota.

Can’t imagine being looked at like my skin, hair, eyes, speech, culture don’t measure up.

Can’t imagine driving or jogging or shopping or simply chilling in a country that believes that because my skin has more melanin, my motives are monstrous and mustn’t be trusted.

And now, these last couple days, I can’t imagine seeing and hearing people I thought were friends and allies complaining about the funeral of a murdered black man too closely resembling a “state funeral.”

The death of George Floyd became the catalyst of a much–needed revolution. He did not sign up to be a soldier. He deserved so much more than a brutal death at the hands of a man corrupted and influenced by privilege and power. But now, in death, George Floyd deserves to be celebrated. He’s become a hero in a war that never should have been. And he deserves to rest in peace.

His memory cannot and should not be left to lie uncelebrated. Cannot and should not be left to lies driven by hatred in attempts to villainize his life and corrupt his memory and the cause that has sprung from the ashes and dust of too many black bodies unjustly killed for too many dark generations.

By laying his body to rest, I pray we are laying to rest all the silent complicity of white privilege. I pray we are at the beginnings of an end to the blatant and latent racism that has driven this nation far too long.

I pray we continue to debride the wounds and break up the scar tissue. It’s not comfortable, not for any of us. It stings sometimes. It hurts. But for our friends of color — Oh-God-Have-Mercy — I can’t imagine the bone-weary acres and acres of buried bruises, inherited pain, and fresh wounds. So. Much. Pain. So. Many. Wrongs.

So while I can’t speak for my black friends and family and students… I can speak out for and with them. I can give them my support and my love and my voice. I can proclaim at the top of my lungs that #BlackLivesMatter. That they are important to me. That their equality is important to me. That justice for those unjustly killed is important to me.

I loudly proclaim I AM NOT COLOR BLIND. I see you, hear you, ache with you, and stand with you. I am ready to help, to do whatever I can. You have a friend and an ally in me.

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when men hold bibles as weapons of oppression

Y’all, I’m terrified.

I’ve been on the side of white men in power suits wielding the Bible as a weapon before. I know on an up-close-and-personal level how dangerous a man who has fallen in love with power and believes he’s unstoppable can be. How quickly he finds allies, how quickly he finds weakness, how he uses everything in his arsenal to his advantage and against yours. I’ve lived in tyranny under the guise of Christianity.

When I was seventeen years old, I didn’t have the power to stop it. The only power I had was to run. To run away to another home. A sanctuary. At fifty-four years old I have the power to stop him. I have the power to vote. I have the power to speak out. I have the power to march. I have the power, but I can’t do it alone.

He’s already gotten away with so much more than I would have thought possible.

When he was elected three-and-a-half years ago I cried and cried and cried. It felt like mourning. It felt like death. I was terrified of what he would do. But I was assured the country had checks and balances in place to keep Trump from doing too much damage. That seems not to have been the case.

I’ve watched the POTUS navigate this country completely without moral compass, violating law and constitutional rights and human decency, time and time and time again. And then, this week, when he declared himself president of law and order and decided he would “dominate” the people he was elected to serve… when he marched his smug self and his police force (his long-dreamt of military parade) out of the Rose Garden and onto the property of St. John’s Episcopal Church, a church dedicated to humanitarian missions and serving those in need within its community, to hold up a Bible in blatant mockery of everything Christ stands for — I knew. I knew we have come to a dangerous tipping point.

I’ve seen men hold Bibles up as weapons of oppression and hatred before. I’ve lived it. And I know the havoc it can wreak. A man who holds a Bible like Hitler and seeks domination and absolute law and order squashes every liberty you’ve ever known. Will rob you of every dream you ever had — if you let them. Don’t let them.

If you are of voting age and you see the slippery slope the feverish, power-hungry philistine in office is trying to steer us all toward, you need to exercise your power, use your might: VOTE. Vote and GET HIM OUT OF OFFICE before he does irreparable harm.

Don’t run away like I did at seventeen. Don’t seek sanctuary somewhere else. THIS is a land of promise. A land of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ALL. Not the few. Not the white. Not the patriarchy. Not the men wielding bibles as weapons.

Stand up. Fight for your freedom. Fight for your dreams. Fight for YOUR country.

VOTE. MARCH. SPEAK OUT. PROTEST.

VOTE.

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If you can breathe, you need to speak

The last few days have been heartbreaking to me in a way I’m having a difficult time processing and expressing. I can’t imagine what my friends of color are feeling. I ache for your grief and your anger.

Seeing the president speak from the rose garden about being a “president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters,” minutes after flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas rained down on law-abiding citizens demonstrating across the street — all so he could parade himself over to a church and wave a bible in the air — it sickens me.

Hearing him speak of second amendment rights and military aggression with heavily armed soldiers to squelch the justified movement of a people in pain and desperate for change — it sickens me.

And not hearing what should have been said. The POTUS not addressing the injustice and violence and murders that led to these protests, this unrest. No acknowledgment of pain felt or wrongdoing dealt. What he didn’t say sickens me most of all.

And the same goes for some of my friends who have chosen to leave so much unsaid. The voices that have stayed silent during this pivotal moment in American history, my grief and shame is overwhelming.

I don’t get it. Staying “politically correct” in a time when the politics of status quo are anything but correct — it’s selfish and it’s sad.

The people who belligerently write “All Lives Matter” on posts infuriate me, but at least I know exactly where they stand. And so does the black community.

It’s the ones who say nothing — they’re the ones you wonder about. Are they ally or enemy? Those who say nothing aid the oppressor. So I guess that makes them enemy.

Silence smothers. It covers and conceals and squelches fire.

George Floyd’s “I Can’t Breathe” cry fell on his tormentor’s deaf ear. But it has become a rallying cry for the movement. Don’t smother that cry with silence.

Without oxygen, you die. Without oxygen, you also can’t speak. Be the oxygen this movement needs. Speak up.

Eric Garner and George Floyd’s and myriads of others’ voices were taken from them. Don’t let anyone — including yourself and any fear you feel — take yours. Use your voice. Stand up. Speak out.

If you love this country and all it stands for. If you believe in liberty and justice FOR ALL, rise up and rail against the injustice you see, you read, you hear, you feel.

You: Speak. For justice, for truth, for liberty. For all the battered, bruised, violated, murdered brothers and sisters of color.

Please. Speak.

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The American Dream is a Nightmare; Liberty & Justice, a Sham

I have to write on this. Not because I have anything particularly valuable to say, but because if I don’t, I’m part of the problem. If I stay silent, I’m encouraging the oppressor. I refuse to support injustice and inequality. I refuse to encourage violence and murder.

So I am standing in the gap and calling for change.

And if I lose friends, if I lose “followers,” so be it. Better that loss, than the loss of human lives in a nation built on liberty and justice for all — unless you don’t fit that “liberty and justice” mold. That white, gun-toting, rebel-rousing, faith-filled, liberty-and-justice mold. It’s fine to be a rebel if you’re white. It’s fine to carry guns — semi-automatic weapons even — if you’re white. It’s fine to be a person of faith — as long as you’re Christian and white. It’s fine to want liberty and justice, as long as you’re white. 

America. A nation built on lies bred on the backs of people of color forced to forge the American Dream. Well, that dream is a nightmare and I refuse to participate. I refuse to bury my head in the sand. Instead, I will scream at the top of my lungs until we all wake up. 

I am no expert. My skin is not black. I cannot say I understand. I can, however, say I empathize. I can, however, say I support you. I can, however, do all I can possibly do to help. I can acknowledge the injustice and speak for change. I can speak out from my heart for my students, my student-athletes, my friends, my fellow humans.

I owe them my love, my support, my energy, and my efforts. I owe them the acknowledgment of inequality. We all do. And we owe them more than that. We owe them equality.

I have seen and heard and felt the racist comments and undercurrents in my classroom whenever we’ve tried to discuss inequality. Inevitably, the room becomes a harshly-divided hotbed of contention — and unwaveringly along color lines. There are far too few white students willing to take a stand with their black peers and acknowledge they have seen and heard the racism inherent in our community. There are, thankfully, a small handful willing to speak up for their peers.

Along with Hispanic and Asian students, they will speak up. Because they know. They understand. They see and hear and feel it too. But inside the walls of my classroom — and inside the walls of my social media accounts, I regularly hear, “Well, honestly, ALL lives matter.”

Well, of course they do. Nobody is saying they don’t. But plenty of people ARE saying Black lives don’t matter.

  • Through their actions. (Refusing to see an undeniable truth IS action and it is unforgivable.)
  • Through negative labeling to “justify” the violence.
  • Through the continued denial of the obvious and ongoing racist crisis in the nation (I hesitate to use the words “Our Nation” when it so obviously denies freedom and justice for ALL). 
  • Through the staggering number of minority deaths at the hands of law enforcement.
  • Through the refusal of the legal system to hold those responsible for the all those deaths legally responsible. 
  • Through the arguments, “But he was resisting arrest”; “But they shouldn’t have been hanging with that crowd”; “But he was jogging in cargo pants”; “But, but, but, but…”

No more butts. We have too many assholes in the world already. There is no excuse, and there is no more time for excuses. Stand up and say No More. No more negative portrayals. No more negative nouns. No more labels. No more statistics. No more names. No more deaths. No more time.

There is only time now for support and for change. Stand in the gap. Help make change. Demand justice. For George Floyd. For Ahmaud Arbery. For Breonna Taylor. For Tamir Rice. Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Philando Castile. For so many more… 

For the many who have been enslaved, scarred, broken, and murdered in the shameful history of a nation built on the dreams of the few at the expense of the many. This. Is. America. 

And until something changes, it is a sham.

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