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. 

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.