It is the silence before and after protests that finds me unable to speak. What we fail to
say and what we didn’t say is the difference between now and then. If we say Black
Lives Matter and then someone says – All Lives Matter, is this clarity or a response
to not being picked at a basketball pickup game? Language doesn’t tie our hands
instead it ties our minds. We like to speak a certain way because we think it gives us
sight but at times it blinds us. Black Lives Matter is a conversation with Ralph
Ellison about the invisibility of blackness. It’s being in the middle of America and
having someone step over you as if you were property (again). A knee on a neck
is no different than a foot on a chair. Do the math. Count the years.
Take a photo of the evidence-the equation that never seems to capture our equality.
People see a flag and don’t see slavery. People see gray and think it’s the essence of whiteness. Change requires for us to no longer be speechless. What comes with the freedom of my tongue? Better yet – what does freedom taste like. Why the constant hunger? And what will quench my thirst?
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