Constant. Rage. My literary father, James Baldwin, said it.
I live in the age of #BlackLivesMatter. I also live in an age where we are deciding whether or not to take down Confederate monuments.
It's hard. What people don't seem to understand about racism is just how major the devaluing of Black life is. We see it in Flint with the poisoning of water. We've seen it with Katrina. We've even seen it in our fight for reparations, where the "radical" economic justice candidate can't even deliver justice to one of the most oppressed populations on this imperial settler colony.
I just came from New York City. Just yesterday, I was minding my business in Washington Square Park when I was approached by a group of people with a camera. I was interviewed for a webseries on complexities. When prompted the question about my own complexities, I took a minute to think exactly what I wanted to say. I had a lot on my mind, from Baltimore, to activism, to being a writer. A lot.
But I took the time to unpack a lot of stress about being young, Black, and working class. If the interview gets posted, great. If not, it was a much needed statement from myself. Just hearing the words come out of my mouth felt therapeutic.
I have to wonder, how much fighting we got to do? Will we be fighting for reparations on Saturn Colony II in 2154? I can imagine, in the days where space travel is common, little Black kids sitting outside on a stoop knowing they'll never see the world from space. The battle against white supremacy and the anti-Blackness woven into our culture will never cease to exist. And my arms are tired.
Tired of thinking about those with "unmarketable" names not getting callbacks. Tired of walking past homeless people in a city where entire streets need to be demolished. Tired of faking the image of someone who's okay. Tired of thinking about alternative pasts and how people vilify those who would've had my behind enslaved. Tired of the prosperity gospel that tells me to pray harder as if I hadn't had generations praying for my soul. My freedom. If I pray any harder I'll end up looking like FKA twigs' on her M3LL155X cover. (I love FKA twigs).
I'm fighting. I'm taking punches I can't see. My eyes are swollen and my arms are tired, but my body tells me, in the voice of Precious, my grandmother "Boy you better keep going." I hear her words in my fingers that write this blog post. In my fingers I find resistance and revolution, sizzling like a fresh Ginger Ale on a Sunday afternoon in mid July. Fre
I'm still fighting because I know love. My grandma taught me love. My teachers taught me love. My mother taught me love too. Each individual taught me love and worth in another way, but it was all love, and it is all the reason I'm in such predicament.
Because I know the value of my Blackness, I can't stand seeing others who may not and thus, I tell them. In one poem, I wrote the line "I become modern day abolitionist" because there's something noble and purposeful about being an abolitionist. I owe them - the Harriet Tubmans, the John Browns - my gratitude, for my freedom. But the abolitionist movement is not yet done. Not when an entire system is built off of the criminalization of your people, throwing them in jails where slavery is still legal by the same amendment that was supposed to set you free.
But I know this because of love. Love makes me the mother lion fighting to the death for her cubs. Love keeps me on this Underground Railroad where I sneak in tidbits about Black radicalism in my daily conversations with young folk. Love keeps me healthy. Love keeps me human. And that's all it is. Love and pain. Pain at the dirty water in Flint Michigan. Pain at the amount of youth that would've been served better by recreational centers than juvenile prisons. Pain for the unskilled worker who's merit is challenged on the same land while the descendants of the enslaved still haven't received their check. Pain at those who lost homes in Rosewood, Tulsa, Philly, and Seneca Village. Pain for anyone on the mother continent that could've been my cousin. Pain for the enslaved mother who saw her son get sold, only to never see him again. Pain for her and the grandchildren she may never know.
But at the end of the day, through this cycle of joy and hurt - the Black American experience for some - I'm still fighting. Teaching love the same way my grandma, mother, teachers, friends, and ancestors taught me.