that time we cried about racism
I haven’t cried in a while, but today it felt right. Fortunately I wasn’t alone in my rage, fatigue, and horror. In fact, I was with my mom. Me on one end of the line, and she on the other, in Texas. Both of us in tears and the heavy burden of blackness on our minds. An author I really appreciate once said, “inside pain or trauma always comes out, always.” I had a feeling of what she meant, but didn’t think that her words might align with trauma occurring hundreds of years ago, to an entire race, namely black people, namely slavery and its repercussions.
My family is like a black circus of entertainment simply wanting to produce and endure a good laugh for ourselves, inviting almost anyone to watch and join. After meeting my family friends would say, “that’s your dad? But, he’s so funny,” or “your mom is so fun.” In spite of the frivolity, like any family, there is also pain and stories better left untold, and considering my entire family, perhaps there are volumes of entire generational experience that cannot be easily understood no matter how the story is retold. You just simply had to be there. Particularly as southerners, my family has witnessed incredible moments of American history actually: the ratification of the ERA, Vietnam, a missile crisis, Kennedy’s assassination, and of course the entirety of the Civil Rights movement. It’s little mystery, then, why the Obama White House will always be a bright beacon for black Boomers, and why the inherent dissent of the Trump proliferation is an equal trigger from their point of view. “This feels like 1960 all over again,” my mom said over the phone. However, it’s May, 2020. Two black men— Ahmed Aubrey and George Floyd— have been killed by police force and another— Christian Cooper— harassed in Central Park. All three within weeks, though in Aubrey’s case we learned that the assault occurred earlier this year, and the public learned several weeks later. Add these moments to the litany of crimes and murder against black men and to the traumas all black citizens endure in America.
If worldwide pandemic isn’t plenty, black American wounds are tempered nationwide again with salt. Looting, riots, and more deaths around the nation as Americans and an eager globe attempt to understand what is happening in the USA and why? The answer is simple— it’s racism, but the answer cannot be overly simplified like this, particularly given the Black path and its shackled lineage here in our United States. If it’s true, that in fact no matter what, trauma comes out, then assume the specific traumas that have made North America the world power she is today, namely trauma absorbed through the lives, grit, and blood of her enslaved. Yes, we’ve evolved since our days of chattel politics but without reconcile or acknowledgement of transgressions. We stand in a moment as incongruent as the physically abusive partner, who makes amends by cooking dinner and asking, “what you want to watch on Hulu tonight, babe?” The trauma lurks and persists unresolved, and the unpredictable, unchecked nature of the abuse festers.
Recently, fire has consumed America, and today Americans gather to condemn the winds that feed the flame.
