Day 3-6 Bury me in the Ocean

"Bury me in the Ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships cause they knew death was better than bondage."

-Erik Killmonger

When I wake up in the morning, there exists a handful of conscious decision making that takes place before I am able to leave the house.  

I wake up every morning having to convince myself that today is another day closer to freedom. My mind does not live in trivial dilemmas, I wake up and understand how direly underprivileged my existence is here. Our genocide doesn't happen outright, it's a process of elimination, a filtering out. Our skin and socio-economic status determined our access, in that access, our bodies are taxed, our homes are in the most polluted areas of the city, that's why it is so cheap to live here, the jobs that are amply available to us are hazardous, that's why they are the easiest for us to get, the food in our immediate community is processed and toxic, that's why it is "affordable". We don't realize these drawn out effects until we look up from our hustle of just surviving to see that none of our parents are living to see 60 and what that means in creating our own family, as our access to resources has become even smaller with no parental support system to help raise our children. 

The extent of human cruelty doesn't just follow me systemically and institutionally. I live it within my family. the selfishness driven by the american dream of individualism. the structure of power, and how it affords privileges and echos access to resources upon whomever is on the right side of power. 

white people are upsetting. but what is most upsetting is knowing that white people are no different from any one of us. It's easy to forgive an old faceless conqueror, they did not know any better, there is a myriad of excuses we could give, but Family. How do you survive being heartbroken over and over and over again by people who should know better? Why did you bring us into this world anyways, what logic do you prevail in projecting your own insecurities, demons, and self hate onto your kin? I guess you can trace those behavior traits back to colonialism, yet some piece of me feels like it's just the nature of Human Beings. 

It'd be easy to live in a world of escape, to reject these realities and replace them with temporary satisfactions, but I just can't anymore. 

I am angry all the time. I can do everything within my capacity to sustain my peace, but it never lasts. I need more Hope. 

I loved Black Panther, it speaks directly of the silent injustices we live every day. But I need more palpable, more tangible Hope. 

God my ask is to be aligned with Hope.