A Question or two and some Thoughts
Silence is acceptance. Acceptance is enjoyment.
I am writing to you today to, I guess, allow you into my head space more than I’d like and speak to which reality I write from. Sure, I am black man. Proud as shit to be black [on both sides, my mind and my heart] but I do not write about the traditional or conventional black experience or the one as we know it to be. I write about my thoughts and feelings as a black man who wants to see something different in the world. That much is true. But what’s also true is that I do not and never will write from a point of view to be palatable or accepted by white people. And to be honest, I honestly do not care to be accepted or marketable to the world. As an artist, my duty is to reflect the times in which we all live. My duty is to also speak towards the ailments actively plaguing our society and as a black person, speak to my own community in terms of restoring order–which means building a true sense of community that we all hope for and desire.
Modern day America seems to be no different than any other part of history. Sure, we may be legally integrated but we’re still culturally and morally segregated. This is no plea to be invited in the big house, no, but it is something that political and social commentators willfully ignore. The pen is mightier than the sword and the sooner everyone realizes that, the sooner we can have constructive dialogue in hopes to understand where everyone stands and how to best move forward. And I don’t have the answers to certain questions but I am open to finding out how we can live in a world that doesn’t favor hypocrisy and deceit over compassion and integrity. For example, there is no way that you can tell me voting doesn’t matter when there has been consistent reports and evidence showcasing polling site interference. There is no way you can tell me that racism doesn’t still thrive in this land when ICE is allowed to roam around and target darker people. I have yet to hear or read a report stating that Asian, Italian or Russian immigrants have been deported en masse back to their homelands. Only Africans, Haitians and Mexicans–that’s not fucked up to you? And I’m not calling for a mass deportation of anyone, legal or not, what I’m saying is don’t lie about what’s going on where you live.
I live in Texas and there's some shady shit going on here. The south in general has a backwards view of anyone who isn’t part of the good ole boys. Established media may speak on these matters but I cannot fully trust their word. Independent media partially speaks on this as well but even they cannot be fully trusted, so everything is taken with a grain of salt until something actually transpires. I just think and feel everything could be different. Really different.
Many will not agree and that’s fine. But guess what? Those same people who disagree are more apt to be complicit in the current trend of apathy and dehumanization. I do not care for anyone’s political affiliations. I care about what direction you are willing to go when your party fails you. Everything is bigger than black and white or democrat and republican or any of that.
How do you determine which way to lean amid this moral crisis? And just so we’re clear, moral does not mean legal and vice versa. But in terms of favor or leaning, I’d say that the best way to determine where you stand is to put yourself in the victim’s shoes. That means white people must ask themselves “how would I feel if a cop pulled me over and while being compliant, by some demonic order, the officer unloads 7 shots into my chest in front of my wife and children?”
For black people who have so much disdain and unnecessary words for our African brothers and sisters, ask yourself, “how would I feel if my sister was grabbed by masked men claiming to be law enforcement and sent to an undisclosed location for an unknown amount of time and swiftly deported somewhere she’s never been or worse?”
You see, these questions are perfectly legitimate although hypothetical, very much real and seemingly happen more often than anyone would like to admit.
So… what will you do? Because with so many being concerned with vanity and other externals, our internal value no longer has any real meaning now because doing the right thing undoubtingly has to been seen or captured on camera for profit.