A ranty two cents on #BlackLivesMatter

Last updated on: December 1, 2014 at 10:32 am by Grace Sandra

A ranty two cents on #BlackLivesMatter 2014-12-01T10:32:09-04:00 Grace Sandra

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I’ve wanted to write more (articles, posts, novels, books, etc.) on why #BlackLivesMatter & throw in my .2 cents on #Ferguson…this movement that’s global now because The Rest ALL READY hated The West & now -thankfully- they have something they can stand WITH us on, but there isn’t anything eloquent or p.c. about the simplistic anger I feel: white folks in power keep killing black folks…and then resigning. If not that, then using systematic racism at obnoxiously subterranean & unconscious levels to shove us into stereotypes and ghettos and categories. If not that then, trying to make us feel shitty & stupid for being hurt and scared because again, WE KEEP DYING…we keep being used as INCOME for prisons…etc. etc. And if not that then telling us how uncomfortable our perspectives make them feel. So. I get stuck somewhere between my messy ass anger & complete silence & asking God a million times over, “double you teeee eff God?!?!”

White peeps & tweeps, I love y’all something extra special. I don’t hate white folks. What I hate is racism & ignorance & cowardice. Also, unexamined & underused privilege.

I point this out because y’all tend to read status like this and throw on the heavy ass burden of personal white guilt when no one is asking that of you, and if anything I would prefer that you worked really damb hard to NOT center yourself in this status update but just take it for what it is: a justifiably angry black woman so effing sick of seeing my people killed & demeaned that I don’t even know how to mourn these issues appropriately any longer. It’s like a wound that festers & pusses & can’t get an hour to heal properly. No, can’t get FIVE MINUTES to heal properly. If you are going to throw on a heavy ass burden, throw on the burden of mutual suffering or the burden of mobilization or the sacrifice of standing in solidarity with your black brothers & sisters of humanity and saying ‘this shit has got to stop for Chrisssakes this is ridiculous’…even when it’s scary to do so. Lose the white guilt burden & gain the Empowered White Person perspective. Because at least that perspective, that burden takes white privilege & harnesses that shit for mobilization and for affecting change. Is that too much ask y’all? Is it too much to ask y’all to use your power & platform & money & whatever other privliges afforded you to stand in solidarity with me? With us? God, I hope not.

I wish I was at that phase of life to engage ‘ish like this with all sorts of eloquence & without use of mild profanity & legal addictive stimulants. But now, I have all the swears & need all the coffees. I’m still stuck somewhere between my beliefs & complete hopelessness. I am stuck.

I still believe -fundamentally- believe at the deepest core of my being: reconciliation between white and black Americans isn’t possible without relationship…without love…without mutual understanding…without a complete and total willingness to be self-sacrificial to the point of death for one another. Ala, MLK. Malcolm X. JESUS. Etc. I’m head scratching here myself: would I be willing to die for a white brother or sister in a show of solidarity & support & for the sake of reconciliation? Our #FirstWorldProblems don’t even begin to allow for that level of commitment to a cause….truthfully y’all. You want to know why e’rybody is angry and confused? It hasn’t even crossed our collective brains that we’d have to actually hurt for one another, die for one another, sacrifice real things for one another in order for justice or any semblance of reconciliation to happen.

So, I’m coming up EXTRA short. I don’t see that type of commitment to reconciliation happening in very many places. (It is most certainly happening, but so few & far between). White folks can tweet #BlackLivesMatter all day long but until it shakes down to IRL (in real life) or resembles anything remotely similar to the type of sacrifice Jesus himself made for the rest of humanity, it don’t mean shit. Until white folks in power stop killing black bodies & start changing systemic practices built hundreds of years ago, still in play, there’s not a helluva lot your #BlackLivesMatter tweets mean to me. Do white people even stand in solidarity with each other????? (I can all ready hear push back, “well, Grace, I’m not in power, those in power don’t rep me…I can’t change the prison system, that’s those other white people!!!!”)

Those tweets though? They are freaking banging gongs. It’s bullshit unless it looks like something in real life.

You wanna show me my black ass matters? Do more than tweet it.

Do I want to show you I’m committed to white folks, that I stand in solidarity with my white brothers & sisters, that I believe reconciliation is possible? I need to do a helluva lot more than angry FB rant, y’all. *Something* has to show in real life.

We need to demand more of one another than ‘what is this person tweeting or blogging’ re: #Ferguson?

Reconciliation shows. Loves. Changes things. Laws are changed. Justice is shown. Killer cops go to jail bottom line. Systems are overturned. Black boys are disproportionately murdered & locked up. Black womens bodies aren’t disproportionately raped, beaten & sexualized. You get the point. ‘Ish changes when reconciliation shows up.

For the love of all that’s good in the world, pretty pretty please black & white folks, don’t let your internet talk allow you to sit pretty & think you doin’ somethin’ simply because you retweet. There’s so much more to do.

We’ve got *actual* work to do. And yeah, I’m TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRED. And I’m overwhelmed but nothing will change if we don’t get into relationships with one another and make *actual* sacrifices. Am I emotionally stuck still? Yes. But if I have any fight left in me, it’s going to be for justice & I am going to ask white folks to stand by me and with me and for me the whole damn time. If you’re not willing….I guess you can keep retweeting.

There. That’s all I have. I seriously doubt The Gospel Coalition wants my submission.

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