By khoLi

8 days ago, I was sitting much the same way – cross legged, with my laptop atop two pillows, my hands refusing to stop moving – thinking through typing … about Mike Brown.

Today, I’m doing the same.

Although, today, I’m typing, not just for Eric Garner, but also for the inestimable toll of black lives – black lives that have been (and will undoubtedly continue to be) lost before the bell of justice rings far and wide across America.

Today, I’m even more indicted by the necessity of mindful thought and consistent action in reaching what I someday hope to be, not just a trite and privileged usurping of black resistance, but a universal state of being: one in which all lives matter.

Until then, I share the essay below with you in love and struggle.

I share it in memory of and reminder that black and a full spectrum of queer and of color lives have, do, and will continue to matter.

I share this in hope that until we live in a society respectful of the preceding fact, we continue to shut it down.

—

I will not take ‘but’ for an answer.

— Langston Hughes

493 days ago, I was sitting much the same way – cross legged, with my laptop atop two pillows, my hands refusing to stop moving – in the same space, sitting and thinking through typing … about Trayvon Martin.

Today, I’m doing the same for Mike Brown.

Today is not a day unlike others.

Today, I woke up and remembered that Darren Wilson’s freedom reminded the nation, all at once, that the lives of black boys do not matter. And enraged at this peculiar institution – this merging of white America and white privilege and racism and patriarchy and denial and irrational fear as one system guised as justice – I wanted to be like so many of the other folks around me. I wanted to be distraught. I wanted to be confused. I wanted to be outraged, shocked, and overwhelmed to the point of immobility. I wanted to feel one large sense of mourning for and with my community. However, this is not the case. If I once felt any of those things for Trayvon or Kendra or Amadou or Rekia or Marlon or Tyisha or Kimani or Renisha or Tamir or …

I do not, I cannot; I will not feel those ways now.

Today, I’m unwilling to pretend like others have not felt the same for [please, insert your own history lesson here, because it is not my job today, to teach us all the history of anti-black violence and oppression in the United States of America].

“White people are aware of the importance of black life in America. That’s why they brought us here.”

I cannot feel all of the Ferris wheel/roller-coaster/spinning vortex of emotions because today is not my first day waking to the fact that white supremacy wants to wipe all people of color (except, maybe, those willing to be used for re-imagined forms of chattel slavery) from the face of this planet.

Today, I am not surprised by the non-indictment of a white man for the murder of a black body. I cannot pretend to allow my mind to be moved.

Toni Morrison has taught all of us that, “The function of racism is dysfunction …” and “… distraction. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason or being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

So somebody says a black boy deserved to die over stealing a pack of cigarillos (though you know he was really stopped for jaywalking); somebody says that the white man who murdered him and stood over his body never stood over his body (though you have seen the picture suggesting otherwise); somebody says that his hands were not up, they were down/out/beside his body/covering his torso/somewhere other than in surrender and tells you that conflicting reports of those facts are reasons why his murderer should not be brought to justice (as though hands attached to a body being inundated with bullets might not move); somebody tells you that the black boy was big and scary and; even unarmed, posed a threat needing to be handled with fatal force (even though we have seen his murderer’s minimal “bruising,” even though we know that none of us have ever seen an unarmed black boy run toward a police officer firing at him, even though we know that if we had ever seen that, then that murderer would need be brought to justice not just for killing a black boy, but for killing a young black god and warrior of resistance); somebody says these things and a host of other unbelievable completely implausible lies, and black people and black people’s allies feel forced to react/respond/(re)educate white America (and its persistent/incessant internet trolls) on the importance of black life.

This is unnecessary. White people are aware of the importance of black life in America. That’s why they brought us here. You are aware of exactly what that means without me having to give a full dissertation on the ways in which our culture and labor have been used/are continuing to be used to build and sustain white power in the United States.

We do not need to educate white people on the importance of black life. We need to show ourselves, and the world around us, the importance of black power. And black power, like white power, is to be wielded in whatever way feels real and useful and valuable to you. And that is scary to most people, specifically white people unwilling to deconstruct white privilege and power, specifically white people unwilling to deconstruct white privilege and power because they are afraid that black power will one day look like white power and all that white power has meant in the United States.

When you resist, you will face resistance.

Do not be distracted. Do not be deterred.

Do not let anyone else attempt to define your resistance while fooling you into compliance.

Today is not a day to give up. Today, like every day that you wake with breath in your body, is a reminder of why we must keep fighting.*

with <3,

khoLi.

Holding a BA in English Arts from Hampton University, khoLi is currently a Ph.D. candidate and Instructor in the Literatures in English program at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. As a serial entrepreneur and creative spirit, khoLi is the creative force behind startup brands like Khafra Company (an image consulting company founded in Oakland), The Ardor Brand (a PR/marketing firm for creative entrepreneurs and organizations), Be Your Own Girlfriend (an online brand promoting intentional self love) and A Room of Our Own (a Philadelphia-based women writing workshop encouraging open creative expression).

*An adapted version of this post originally appeared on Black.Girl.Grad.School. Cross-posted with permission. Read the original piece here. Featured images are courtesy of Tumblr.