Dear Society,
You’re at it again. You are continuing to do things that I have no choice but to address and write to you about. A year ago, I pleaded with you for justice but you did not deliver. Now, here I am a year later with not one specific grievance to bring to your attention, but three. The sad thing is that you have committed so many atrocities in the name of your fear of my skin that you probably have no idea who I am referring to. I mean, you have cogently proved you have no regard for Black life, so I am certain that you don’t care, but that is neither here nor there. I refuse to spare their names and dare give you a reprieve or an out that enables you to abandon responsibility and accountability. To forget what you’ve enabled, what you’ve sanctioned, and what you defend – time and time again. As it pertains to your irrational fear of our skin that you believe entitles you to violence and murder, in case no one has told you lately or at all, it is utterly baseless. Your claim is that you fear us and every time you act, it is out of self-defense and preservation of your life, but we do not have a history of violence, you do.
We did not take you from the land and home you knew and transport you to a land you did not recognize. We did not remove you from your culture and roots. We did not give you a new name. We did not use and abuse you as free labor. We did not rape your mothers and children. We did not separate your families. We did not forbid you from pursuing education. We did not force you to sit on the back of the bus. We did not turn water hoses on you. We did not sic our dogs on you. We did not burn down your churches. We did not refuse to attend schools with you. We did not kill your leaders. We do not steal your culture and pass it off as our own. In fact, we can’t because you have no culture. Theft is not a culture, but it is your legacy. And we did not go into Breonna Taylor’s home and shoot her where she lay in bed. We did not chase Ahmaud Arbery while he was out for a jog in his own neighborhood and murder him on the street. We did not choke George Floyd so violently that he begged for his mother and his children. Like Eric Garner, he cried out that he could not breathe. And just as you did with Eric Garner, you ignored his pleas for life, for breath and for his loved ones and choked the life out of him.
In the event you are in need of a history lesson, and not your revisionist history, but the facts, it wasn’t me or any of us that committed any of the aforementioned sins. And in the event that you are unfamiliar with process of elimination, that only leaves you. So, what exactly are you afraid of? I have to know. Because in these three cases and so many others, my brothers and sister were of no threat to you. They were outnumbered by you, in fact. So where is this fear coming from? Since I don’t really care for your answer and I know you are incapable of being honest and refuse to truly reflect inward, I will answer my own question. This fear, this legacy of utterly uncorroborated fear has always come from a place in your mind that is not rooted in reality, but your imagination. Because under your veil of denial of all you’ve done is a keen awareness of exactly what you’ve done and your fear is that, should we get the opportunity, we will mimic your savagery.
You fear that with all our intellect, ingenuity, and time that we will unleash that which you have heaped on us for 400 years and counting. But what we have done in spite of your violence and hate and abuse is persevere – we became inventors, scientists, creatives, entrepreneurs. preachers, teachers, lawyers, politicians. We became precisely what you never wanted for us and that is a people of pride, distinguishment and most importantly, a people that do not need you to succeed or even, exist. You tethered our existences together in the vilest of ways when you created black and white but you failed to see that we were all already a part of mankind and made in God’s image. Where there was commonality, you felt the need to create division. Despite our perseverance and our propensity to always rise to the occasion and above the stereotypes of your making, there is something we still need from you. Well, several things, but I will begin with this one thing so as not to overwhelm you, and this time, I am neither asking nor pleading with you this time. I am demanding justice. For Ahmaud Arbery. For Breonna Taylor. For George Floyd. You owe us a lot more than that, but I will start there.
I have half a mind to tell you that I don’t know how many more letters I can write to you. But as much violence and murder you have in you, I have just as many letters in me. Because the minute I put my pen down, it will place you under the delusion that I agree with you and that all is right between us but I can assure you that neither of those things are true. We will be in touch.
Emphatically,
Your Greatest Adversary
