I am mentally exhausted. I am emotionally drained. I am creatively tapped out.
There is too much going on in the world.
First the pandemic. Then the lockdown/quarantine/stay at home order and worldwide social distancing. Then George Floyd's murder (the latest in a long string of ropes that make up the noose tied around Black people's necks). Now the protests and looting and rioting that have led to an 8pm curfew here in New York City.
The misinformation and the rumors about Covid-19 and the vaccines. The conspiracy theories. The not knowing if any of it is really true, because of course if it was true they'd deny it anyway.
The uncertainty regarding the fall semester and the reopening of school, just when I finally got started again.
The fear anytime I see a police car behind me. The constant worry about my dad and brother and boyfriend - if they were to get stopped by police.
The everything else that usually bothers me.
I don't know what to do.
I didn't want to join protests, because I don't want to be a martyr that's not counted when I could make a difference somehow behind the scenes. Also because I'm genuinely afraid. There. I said it. Maybe that makes me un-Black, or weak, but I'm afraid of going to a peaceful protest and having a SWAT team descend on me or a police officer knock me over. I don't like confrontation.
But I'm also angry. Angry to the point of being unable to think straight. I'll try to focus on doing research for my June blog on meditation, and my thoughts keep going back to a blurry mental image of George Floyd on the ground with a knee on his neck. Or to the caption I read that contained his last words. How he called out for his mama, even though she'd died two years before.
Why?
Why do they hate us? Why are they afraid of us? Why do they create groups dedicated to eradicating us and depict us as stupid and take the credit for our discoveries and inventions? Why do they teach us that our history began with us as slaves? Why did they steal a country from one indigenous people and uproot another to rebuild it with blood and death and tears and torture - and then refuse those people (both Natives and Blacks) the right to live peacefully and free from fear and mistreatment in that same country?
Why is the only history we learn told from the European conqueror's point of view? From the European explorer's point of view?
BUT WHY?
Why do they say that our natural features are unprofessional and not beautiful - curly hair, dark skin, thick lips - yet they lie for hours in tanning beds, risking skin cancer to add color to their skin or smear tinted creams on themselves, they perm their hair and pump their lips full of filler, they slap cornrows on a celebrity or a model and suddenly it's acceptable.
It almost makes you want to hate them.
Not all of them. Just the ones who are horrible, or who are ignorant and refuse to allow themselves to be educated. But it's hard to know who is who when you see them on the street or in the grocery store. It's hard not to feel a pang of resentment knowing that they will NEVER have to be afraid for their life when they're pulled over by a police officer, or that however they look is the universal standard of beauty. That they're able to go to a good school and get a good job or decent healthcare treatment just because of the Caucasian name on their resume/ID card.
It's not fair.
I grew up with a White mother who frequently forgot she wasn't Black, because she lived in a Black community, surrounded by Black people, married to a Black man, raising a Black step-son and biracial Black daughter for the last 30 years of her life. More than half of her life. People would ask her if she was Jamaican because of how integrated with the culture she became, even though she had blonde hair and green eyes and skin that burned after thirty minutes in the sun.
I grew up thinking that most White people in America were like my mother - kind and openhearted and loving of Black people - until she died and Trump got elected president, (as a matter of fact he didn't get elected, it was just the stupid electoral vote that isn't fair anyway, the majority wanted Hilary Clinton) and all the closet racists and neo-Nazis and patriotic bigots came out of the woodwork.
I was shocked.
I used to think it was cool to be half-White. Now...now I don't know how to feel about it. It's screwing with my identity and sense of self big time. It feels like half of me hates me. I don't proudly tell people I'm mixed anymore. I just say I'm Black. And that also feels like a betrayal of my mother, who was a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul, and I know she would have been out here at these protests, doing something to make a difference.
I miss her.
The feelings are all so convoluted.
My friend asked me the other day how being half Black and half White affects me in this current racial climate...and the truth is, it confuses me. I don't know who to identify with, because while I never wanted to pick sides before, now it feels like I have to. And of course, I'm going to pick the Black side, because no one should be treated the way Blacks are in this country that WE BUILT. LITERALLY. I'm going to pick the Black side because the color of my skin and the texture of my hair dictate that I'm viewed as Black by anyone who looks at me, and the stupid one-drop rule declares me Black and subject to the same discriminations that anyone not one hundred percent "White American" would face.
But it feels disingenuous. Almost as if I'm hopping on a bandwagon. Like I don't deserve to be a face amongst the ones who are discriminated against, because I'm not one hundred percent Black. Then again, is ANYONE one hundred percent White or Black or Asian or Pacific Islander or whatever other stupid racial categories they have on the Census form? It's all just ways to divide us - I understand that now it's to make sure we get what we need because we've been discriminated against in the past and it's to make sure there's room for diversity and affirmative action and all that....
BUT THAT SHOULDN'T BE NECESSARY IN THE FIRST PLACE!
That's always been my point, back when I was flying the banner of All Lives Matter. My point was that it should never have gotten to the point of needing to actively include people or marginalize them further because they were marginalized in the past and now you need to make sure you make up for it.
But I get it now. Black Lives Matter because they don't matter to a scarily significant number of people who have authority over us, and because they don't matter to the troll who calls himself our president and shoots tear gas at peaceful protestors so he can get a photo op with a Bible.
The BLASPHEMY and HYPOCRISY.
Will it never end with this man? How can people support him? How can people say that he's the best president we've ever had? How can he compare himself to Abraham Lincoln and claim he's done more for Blacks than any president besides Lincoln?
My dad says not to hate him. I'm trying not to.
The problem with being hated and targeted is that it's hard to not let your anger turn into hatred as well, especially when you see such stupidity and willful ignorance.
Sigh.
I'm glad I got that out. I don't feel that much better, but my mind is a little clearer. My heart is still racing low key, though. I hope some change for the better comes out of all of this, and that it's not a one world order. I'm not ready to handle that level of biblical prophecy coming true just yet.
Laters.
