About quarter till 12 on a Saturday, I scrolled fast through my facebook Newsfeed as an article caught my eye, As I read each word in the headline, I felt my heart break. It read “Kerrice Lewis-Lesbian Murdered & Burned Alive- Say Her Name”
Her eyes, young like mine, I saw myself in her. A Black queer young woman. She not much older than I. “…just days after Christmas, in Washington DC” I felt my throat tighten, and my stomach knotted up. As today is only the 6th day in the New Year, I was confused and distraught. I had been reading post about love, unity, turning over new leafs in 2018- yet this article proved to me that people have not aimed to break our own fatal cycles within our communities
I read on. I read how neighbors heard her scream as she tried to escape from a trunk of a car that was lit on fire. Tears welled in my eyes. How could people be this cruel?
I like many other “woke” Black individuals often spend my time critique systematic oppression and the ways it engenders our academic, workplace environment as well as our quality of life as We have read about both segregation dejure and defacto about the genocide of black folx through the cutting off and the poisoning of resources (Flint Michigan). We have read about both old and new Jim Crow, about W E B Dubois, pan africanism, Willie Lynch, MLK, Malcolm X, black unity, black upward mobility, black love, Maya Angelou, code switching, about soul food everything “Black”.
Yet too often our lenses are pointed outward not seeking Introspection.What can we do for Us? Who is going to love us, BUT us? Who is representative of Us? Oppression has caused Black people to redefine themselves based off of projections of perceived Blackness. Blackness is portrayed as being entertainers, fried chicken, grape soda, dancing, being loud. Blackness being portrayed as hiding trauma, broke and broken families, homophobia. But like any portrayal, it contains some truth.
It’s 2018 and we as Black people are still seperating ourselves by class, by shades, by features, by clothes, by sexuality and appearance? WE are still killing each other over these things. We chant we pray we cry Black Lives Matter, but do we mean disabled black lives? LGBTQ lives? Non conventionally attractive black Lives? Fat Black lives? What about, Black lives that don’t agree with your way of life?
In 2018 I ask Black people: How far does your Black love extend and for whom?
