I haven’t turned on my television since Tuesday. I have also avoided the internet since Thursday. I do not know what has become of the country since the day we do not speak of. What I do know is there are people who are consuming information and it is all wrong. Everyone else is confused. Since 2014, I have been compiling a running list of the things that got us to this place. It began in my head a decade or so before that. I figured if I organized a list of ways that we as Black people fight oppression it could be understood by everyone else. Everything has a system or a hierarchy that people just accept. It seems like we never created one for how to handle systematic racism and its incessant violence upon Black people. The confusion has become so prevalent I wonder is it ambivalence or aloofnesses. Are people really trying to be dense in regards to what is happening to us, with us? Why is it that for only a few things are truly understood? Also, why do some pretend to understand only to be complicit? What is the motive in faux compassion? What is the motive in suppressing the experiences and trauma of others? Is the definition of protest different for everyone? Surely, someone is responsible for keeping everyones right to protest segregated. Someone, somewhere must be keeping this battle going.
Questions. It all begins with questions. When we breakdown the reason to protest it is to find answers for questions that people, institutions and systems refuse to answer. Protest is merely a form of communication. It is one of the steps in a series of steps. In most cases, protest is meant to be a resolution to a problem. The parties communicate and come to a conclusion. Questions that were unanswered and problems that previously existed become answered, solved. When there are no answers or maybe a delay in response the parties asking have other choices. The choices can then be demonstrated. Having a demonstration is not necessarily protest. It is apart of the process. We will demonstrate the attempts we made at resolution and how it all remains unresolved. This step applies pressure to the other party to finally respond. It also brings awareness to our cause. If inaction persists and there is an overall lack of empathy for our patience, sacrificing and new following — we move on to the next steps. This is when silence is golden because at this point we are organizing. We are preparing for protest after trying everything else to effectively communicate. In this time, the other party can try to answer the questions but it may be entirely too late. At this point, you have ignored the initial cause for too long.
Lack of empathy and ignoring the catalyst can make things more volatile. Typically, no one on either side wants to take it that far. In the case of Black Americans, we have been at this stage for a very long time … centuries. By the time we had the right to exercise our liberties and “safely” engage with our oppressors to ask questions, we were already at a boiling point as a people. Surprisingly, we have all as a collective remained resilient and composed. We have done so without answers, no resolutions, a multitude of problems with everyone else and no give and take on their end. Some see this as us being docile, being complacent and maybe we were during forced slavery and later segregation. Maybe it was a strategy on our part to begin to be heard. We expected an equalization that never came. It has been over 400 years and the dialogue is really just beginning and we aren’t even being heard. Stay with me. This is why we find it hard to understand why everyone doesn’t understand the basis of why we protest. Again, it has taken years for us to have a voice, find it, let alone use it. And now we cannot even have a discussion without more opposition. It has always been a fight and we are tired. It’s a cold war.
We tried to make demands. We made strides with that. We can vote. We can sit wherever on the bus. I can have vanilla ice cream at the counter. Is it enough? Absolutely not. At first, we were all self sufficient. We had to be. Because everything that was right and just was taken from us. We were stripped of our land, names and culture. Our children were separated from their mothers and fathers. We were not allowed to dream, inspire or even read. We worked for everyone else and watched them create legacy, draw lines in the sand and revel in what we know of today as democracy. We have never liked it and we have just had to lay in waiting for a time where we could offer our own two cents. Despite the demands and strides, we have never been considered as equal. So we remain in defense with our questions unanswered and the majority of our demands remaining unmet. There was never any apology. We never got our forty acres and a mule. And now even with our vote we do not have a say in things. So we have began to finally protest. We have become organized and non-complacent. It has been a long time coming. Our demands are pretty much the same but now we are demanding they finally be heard. This is beyond the marches of the Civil Rights movement or the oddity that is Affirmative Action. We do not wish to be distracted and placated with small steps. We want complete resolution. Some of us want reparations. All of us want a seat at the table or the ability to just have our own table again.
At this point, our next option is civil disobedience. And you can interpret that however you feel. For me it is skipping ads on creators who are others. It is not saying hello in an elevator. It is not holding the door. It is placing my change on the counter too. It is doing, saying and wearing whatever I want. While the following isn’t a form of it to me it too can be interpreted as such like wearing natural hair, being well-spoken, refusing to code switch, or having a better life than expected or proposed for me. The irony is I can be all of these things with no intentions in oppressing anyone. However, typically when it is done to me it is in direct opposition to me and people like me and purposely so. Not liking my content because I am Black is equivalent to ignoring my voice. Not greeting me and ensuring that I feel uncomfortable in predominately white or othered spaces is deliberate. Putting your hair in a “messy bun” and then asking that I tone down my ethnic appearance in the same office is problematic. So at this point, we are beyond asking questions or offering to exchange in dialogue around our differences. Gone are the days of diversity and inclusion discussions. I shouldn’t have to force you to attend the meeting and sign the handbook. It is the 21st century and you should already know that I am entitled to respect. I don’t have to like you and you do not have to like me. However, if you feel whatever way it is best you keep it to yourself. That is the unsaid compromise to a long history of an emotional battle around race, compassion and acceptance. Please respect me. That isn’t a lot to ask for. That shouldn’t be regarded as a demand. But now I have to protest for it. I have to protest because you absolutely refuse to respect me, our differences, my body, my space and this is especially so for people who look like me.
I cannot even believe I am asking for respect. I am the granddaughter of sharecroppers. I am the daughter of college educated parents. I myself am a culmination of all the strides generations before me have made. I look at past protests and I see steps in the right direction but not a final resolution. The problems remain but the solutions are there. Again, I wonder how is it possible for everyone else not to see this. Black people are able to read each other in these situations. We observe each other similar to being pinched during a dream. We figure there must be a glitch in the matrix. I mean there really is no way there are new generations of people that do not understand what we as Black people went through and why we are still protesting to this day. Do they too abstain from watching the news? Are they too anti-consumption? If so who is the media showing all this murder and mayhem to? Who is the audience when Black people have turned it all off in protest? I guess this is their response. This is the answer. Now there is an improper response to our simple demands. They have intimidated us. They are retaliating against us. We are remaining steadfast and that incites them more.
Then comes the irrational response. We are being surveilled after being inimidated. We remain passive and they retaliate against us for it. Now comes civil unrest or the state we have actively been in since 2014. On both sides, we are both to blame, for dismantling defenses and actionables on both ends. Now we are both making demands that could never be met and as this list grows the fire is fueled. We were peaceful but now we are in defense mode. America is a war zone now. A tit for tat battleground of who deserves what. This thin line has enacted the police state, a corrupt government and a lack of trust. Everyone is against everyone and the initial point is now forgotten, moot. We have been here before. The Civil War. It was about one thing and became another. Communication shut down. And now with all these voices, rights, safe spaces and the ability to do whatever we want - it is out of control. The counter protest has begun inciting violence, igniting the confusion and making it about something else. Here it is. This is the point when everything began to fall apart.
Now are we responsible for clearing this up? No. I for one refuse to. I think we all feel the way I do. If you had fought long and hard for basic respect and it isn’t given why would you consider confusion around it? How could you expect us to help you figure out why we got to this place? This is your fault. All of it is entirely your fault. We should be more confused than anyone. Can you imagine 400 years and no generational gap, six degrees or evolutionary science to show from it? We expected for everyone else to evolve from hatred. We tried many methods to help you along the way. We really thought that would be more than enough. We have engaged in dialogue, implemented change, initiated integration and now that we protest you haven’t a clue. Have you forgotten everything that has happened between us? Aren’t there plenty of resources to figure it out? Do we of all people have to remind you, educate you and show you? Are you incapable? Are you blind? Maybe everyone else is asleep.
Seriously, as we go about all these steps in communication should we be the ones by your side for an awakening? You have been sleep all these centuries while we have been wide awake. Involuntarily kept awake for hundreds of years by screams, tears, lashes, bullets and words. The most frustrating thing is seeing everyone else claim to be woke and then return to somber so quickly in this fight. The ones claiming to be with us, standing by and all of that but also asleep at the wheel. The ones driving us further into distrust, defense, detachment and despair. The insolence is endless. Violence begets violence at this point. We understand full and well the implications of your confusion. This too is violent. The microagressions, the blindness, the cruelty, the false accusations and subtleties are all so damn painful. Our defense mechanisms are then read as everything but. Our words are swords. Our fists are bullets. Our existence as a whole is just so damn infuriating to you. I am going for a promotion but I am a threat. I am bird watching in a park and I am combative. I am going to breakfast with my father but I am a thief. Those not engaged in any fight are being accused of being the exact thing you have been all along. Threats when I am alone. Combative before I can defend myself. Thieves of promotions, accolades and joy. These acts are your day in and day out, centuries long violence against us.
So back to the steps. We are now counter protesting. One side against the other and us both pointing fingers. Then the state gets involved and in this we must regroup, reorganize and create new demands. The civil unrest and subsequent counter protest is being met with combat intervention. The response be it local, state or federal is not concerned about the initial steps either party has taken. They are only aware of the here and now. Now the distrust between us has become a betrayal of trust with the system. This is how it works at least for Black people. If you, an other and I, the Black person, are in a dispute and someone interrupts this they will always consider the other side first. This heightens the entire situation. I wanted help. We both did. I might have even been the one to call them and when they arrive they only talk to you. They ignore me. They accuse me. They detain me. They shoot me. They kill me. The betrayal of trust, the breakdown of it and the combating invention echoes through communities, into the cities and penetrates everywhere at once. Everyone is outside with a million questions and no one is answering them. Trust is lost on both sides. We are all out for the state and each other now. We riot and loot. Then the state improperly reacts with even more surveillance and curfews. They set all of us up for devastation and destruction. We are all out in the street fighting and for what.
Here is where the clashing starts. There are protests, non-violent and violent ones, meeting in the middle of a militarized, policed street. No one knows what we are fighting for. Is it to avenge or to atone? The line is thin. One party is pretending. Another is just overacting. I am angry and tired. This is how communication turns into all in out chaos. Here is the heavy line between communication and chaos. Protest lies somewhere in the middle of the two. So calling chaos a protest even if it is violent is a slippery slope. Wednesday, the day people are trying to let live in infamy was chaos. Choas being a gateway to terror, martial law, war and total anarchy. It was just another day for me and people like me. A day where people we have been fighting with for centuries pretended to be confused. They didn’t see us standing there or better yet we were there in some imaginary form. We started it. We instigated this. We are apart of the problem. The problem being all the reasons people stormed the Capitol and entered the chambers of the House to … protest? Masks. Democracy. Black People. All a hill to die on, pun intended. By gunfire. By trampling. By pummeling with a fire extinguisher. I cannot make this up.
Is it wrong to say that I do not feel sorry? I don’t. We could have talked all this out so long ago. The deaths of people involved in the events of Wednesdays rape of the Capitol are collateral damage. They claim it was never anyones intention to hurt anyone. They say the day was coincidence. The protest got lost as the communication wasn’t clear and there was no organization. Things went wildly out of control aka chaos. For us continuing to gather information and break it down we don’t see the point. Was it to collect relics of forefathers, to piss the halls of democracy or to wave flags, even those that conflict with each other. Was this communication, infoming America of a problem? Was it asking for answers to questions? Or was it merely telling us something. To watch the state, its police, all of those conflicting opinions and supposed marauders for an unknown cause collide — it was like every single day. So I chose to turn my television off in the same way people close their eyes and ears to our questions, problems, demands and causes. I do not want to think about the possibilities of what could have happened in the same way everyone else doesn’t want to think us being equal. I do not want to debate what is happening after the fact because it is nothing as per usual all talk, no action. I guess all is fair considering this country and her rights. Everyone is given freedom of speech and the right to protest for what they believe is true. My hope is now that you have seen both sides fighting for what they believe in you can see the difference and now the steps should be clear. If you are still confused, then you deserve to be.
