The words I couldn't say- STOP KILLING US

Today, May 27, 2020 on my IGTV I made an attempt to say these words out loud. But I couldn't get them out, not in the fullness of the way I wanted to. So I am taking a moment to drop them here. 

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Whether you believe in God or not, this is a truth that grounds me and has been so eloquently written by Ps. Brian Houston in his book, Live Love Lead, "... we are made in God's image as relational beings, created to belong, to serve, to worship, and to live in community."

If COVID-19 teaches us anything, it's that we are more connected than some of us would like to admit. We are seeing the real impact of our actions and choices in someone else's life. 

#StopKillingUs has been a rallying cry for me, but it's bigger than the "us" that looks like me. 

I believe that there is a God, whose perfect plan is the reconciliation of His creation to Him and then to each other. 

The Bible talks about the Body of Christ and this beautiful representation of a body. When you put into perspective the various parts of the body and all their roles and responsibilities to make the body whole, it is a beautiful illustration of who we are in Christ and who we are as a COMMUNITY. The Bible highlights when there are pieces of the body missing, that the body won't function at its best. 

When you think about your body when it is sick, the body will attack itself, trying to kill out what should not be present. 

Applying this illustration with natural eyes to the recent story out of Minneapolis, MN, then yes, 4 officers killed a man who didn't deserve death--- insert any act that ends in someone's life being taken. At the end of that narrative, a life is lost. 

I cry out and grieve for the significant loss of life, because the Body of Christ lost a member. A member that would have been a perfect fit for this Body. I cry out because the body is attacking itself! 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr has a quote about his freedom being inextricably linked to that of another. When will we get it that the virus of racism is killing ALL of us! We are all dying at it's sight. 

This body is ACHING! 

This body is BLEEDING!

This body, OUR BODY, is WOUNDED AND NEEDS HEALING.

It needs the healing of knowing we are meant to be in community with each other. 

It needs the healing of knowing we can't survive this life without each other.

It needs healing.

We need healing.

My body needs healing

MY SOUL CRIES OUT!

His name was George Floyd, "He Couldn't Breathe."

MY SOUL CRIES OUT! 

 

It's not about having the "Right words," but having words, PERIODT.

In light of the recent case of Amhaud Arbery who was murdered in what can only be named a hate crime. It's in moments like this- Black death as a result of racism, creates emotional upheaval for me personally- as a Black woman in the United States. It breaks my heart and if you look back to these posts, you'll see that race relations has been a significant through-line for me.

This recent murder and the footage that was released almost two months after his killing, raised many of the same emotions and feelings of disruption, disappointment, anger and fear, that the previous cases have. The collective grief that becomes unearthed at each tragic loss is very much an open wound for many Black, African descent Americans. 

I was reading a Blog Post from Hillsong Collected, titled The World Needs a Saviour by Ps. Bobbie Houston. In it Ps. Bobbie notes the following:

 empathy is “the ability to lean in and identify with the difficulties of another”, regardless of whether you have experienced that difficultly firsthand or not.

 Reading this literally raised something for me that I didn't quite dig at as much. In times passed, I have struggled with what feels like silence, particularly from white people around the racism that is being actively displayed on social media platforms, in the form of Black death. It has been frustrating at times to feel like, my pain is not recognized, cared for, or even validated. 

I have at times "lashed" out on the silence of friends, hoping to break through to connect with the human experience and the pain and suffering that either I or others are experiencing. 

What I hear and took time to listen to with more intention this last time was "I don't know the words to say."

WHEW!!!

When I finally heard and really received those statements in the context of this loss of life, I realized something. My friends' statements vocally or through their social media platforms, stating "I don't know the words to say..." isn't a bad thing. It isn't a silent thing as I was making it out to be. 

 I struggle a lot with having words and really ,"the right words," to say to make someone feel better. It's in our nature when grief comes to be able to say the "right" words to "fix" something. To make our friends, family, whomever we are interacting with "feel better."

It is in this way of entering the conversation that I myself have failed. One significant detail that comes to mind is the Pulse Shootings in Orlando in 2016. I didn't "rally" the way I can sometimes expect my friends to "rally" for me when someone who looks like me is murdered in a very public way. I missed an opportunity to be present for my friends who were in pain and were likely hurting from the aftermath of these shootings. 

I realize I don't always "rally" for my friends navigating with trauma proximate to their lives.... Why? Not having the "right" words. The words I hope that bring solace or comfort or "fix" the problem.

Romans 12:15 Rejoice with others who rejoice; Mourn with those who mourn

 

 There are no "right" words that will take the pain away. But we show up anyway. Romans 12:15 makes it pretty plain and simple-rejoice with others who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.  That alone gives us a tie back to Empathy. You don't have to be connected to the emotions directly in order to say, I am with you. 

Right words are words of love. 

Right words are words of validating someone else's emotions.

Right words are words that tell some one you care about, I don't have the answers. I know I can't fix this thing, but I see your pain and I am with you. 

Right words are words that celebrate the highs and are there in the lows. 

Right words are getting out of our own way. Our comfort and being proximate to someone else's pain. Not because you "get it," but because you may want to. 

Right words are merely showing up, saying I see you and I am with you. 

Not Okay....

These times that we are in is killing my spirit and energy softly. I have been emotionally disrupted with the events that have happened--- #AltonSterling || #PhilandoCastile || #Dallas and the many other events that caused a hashtag, a headline or a history of terror and trauma that have happened before and simultaneously with this time.

Writing is my release, my healing. I can no longer be quite in the spaces that I influence. Action will be my redemption. My voice matters, my vote matters the most and to all of my folks asking what can they do--VOTE!


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Not Okay..

I am not okay

Humanity is not okay

We are not okay

I'm not okay with the state of terror that I live in//

I'm not okay with the blatant disrespect and violence against Black bodies//

I'm not okay with the FEAR, the PAIN, the DISCONTENT and DISORDER that lives within me//

I'm not okay with the silence//

I'm not okay with the neglect//

I'm not okay with the ignorance to not understand the TRAUMA that my community is facing//

I am not okay

Humanity is not okay

We are not okay

I'm not okay with some of the communities I belong to, not acknowledging that individuals they know are in pain and are suffering//

I'm not okay with your inability to say directly to me that you care//

I'm not okay with your inability to acknowledge that you are sorry for what I'm experiencing DIRECTLY TO ME//

I'm not okay with our society making basic expressions of compassion uncomfortable in this moment//

I'm not okay with it feeling like the only comfort I am able to receive, feel and internalize is from my community who is suffering through the same trauma I am//

I am not okay

Humanity is not okay

We are not okay

I'm not okay with seeing Black men & boys walking around me on the street and silently praying they aren't next//

I'm not okay with feeling that I'm making you uncomfortable for sharing my pain//

I'm not okay with feeling that my job is to make you feel less uncomfortable, when my comfort is continuously disrupted in the torment and torture of Black men and families//

Today I am not okay

Tomorrow I might not be okay

But my prayer, my fight, my hope is I will be ~ WE will be ~ Humanity will be

#THISISTRAUMA #THISISTERROR #NoMoreNames #BlackLivesMatter #IMatter

Originally posted on my Inside Keesha's World blog. 

In Mourning.... (Thanks Jamila)

There are many quotes that are running through my head right now as I get ready to put together this post. In particular " All my life I had to fight..." (The Color Purple)  In this current state of the Black experience in the US and even before, we have been having to fight. Fight for others to see us as human beings, to see us worthy, to see us a part of this society. There is a collective feeling of crisis for Black people in this country when we constantly are faced with more and more news that brings back these realities, these traumas of our historical experience.

Another quote that comes to mind is one of Dr. King "They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."- I have a dream 

A friend of mine posted this image

With it she expressed things I haven't been able to. I am tired, my heart is literally breaking, I walk around in silence around these issues of injustice that I have seen because my mouth hurts too much to talk about it anymore, my ears hurt to much to hear about it any more and I am just tired. I want to cry every time we add another name to the list- I want to scream every time another child is buried, I want to hit something every time I see an insensitive comment, or someone just voicing their opinion just to hear themselves talk. 

I need everyone to take a collective moment of silence and mourn, mourn for the children we are burying, mourn for the loss of innocence that continues to happen by our hands. I am about to turn 30 and I have seen too much in my lifetime that has dramatically shaped and changed my experience in the world. I can't say that it's not for the better, but when death is all too real and all to close to so many of us, when it can be prevented, we are all at fault. 

I will never be a police officer or know what it is like to have to walk out my door and pray I make it home. I hope to never have to face a moment where I am pleading for my life from someone who feels they have the right to take it. But here is the thing, those points of few are the problem to begin with. Black bodies and police officers are living in this mentality of war and have been for so long.  It is this attitude and mindset that continues to bury my innocence, my hope and my trust that things will get better. When officers walk out in an attitude of war, that attitude permeates the atmosphere in real and ugly ways.

But the same can be said for marginalized people. They walk into this world ready for battle, ready for war against the people who are set to "serve and protect."

This life that we are living is NOT NORMAL. And I need us all to stop acting like it is or this should be.  I need us all to take a pause, to take a moment of silence, not to be silenced, but to really think does it matter what our opinion is, who's wrong and who's right when a life has ended before it was expected?

I'm in mourning because I am tired of seeing the battle between two people who I consider friends on Facebook. I'm in mourning because I am tired of being let down by friends who will never understand the pain that I carry EVERY TIME another one of my collective is murdered, is made a mockery and  created into another visual example that who I am in the larger scope of the world does not matter. I am in mourning because until we as a society get it right, you will never know that 
"[our] freedom is inextricably bound."- Dr. MLK Jr.