are you tired?

are you not?

One of my youngest memories was my grandmother telling me that “everything is better in America”. She wanted education, opportunity and economic freedom for us. She wanted marriage for her children and a home for her legacy. These were the lofty goals promised at the “land of liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

My family never talked about what being Black in America meant in our Jamaican house hold. We kept our head down, assumed to our goal’s and talked about getting a job, seizing opportunities and becoming American to do so (as I assumed most immigrant families did). We did not talk about the value systems behind the ways in which America was built (on the backs and bones of enslaved Black people) thou we all knew and studied the ways of the American caste. We knew our role in an opportunity economy as Black immigrants. It took a very long while for me to realize that as a first generation Black American, that this country will break your heart if you let it. I was always saddened that my grandmother never perpetually warned me of this heartbreak.

Yesterday I was naive and today I am not surprised. I am angry, angered at the privilege of my generation. Angered at what’s at stake. We are living in a regressive state and our generation has never been more divided. What I know is that America stood up and claimed… that a Black woman, (regardless if we loved her or not) with way more morale and value, with a valid resume of experience, with a higher level of humanity, was unqualified to lead the “free world”.

I meant what I said  yesterday, to anyone who heard it. We cannot take our freedoms for granted, we cannot allow the system to perpetuate. We cannot leave yet another political uproar to be solved by only Black women. We cannot surrender our rights to live freely. While we engage in the mental math of an overflow of opinions in the next few months, please understand the history of our country. Please understand the decision a lot of your peers have made. Please wake up.

We need to expect very little from the United States of Amerik*ka but way more from our people.

Black women I pray for us, I pray we heal from the symbolic representation of how the world we live in views our power. Black women I pain for us. I pain for a world that would rather us rot in helll, than elect a viable opposition for us to fight.

I do not have the answers, but I know that my family is not from here. That I was raised by Black women who have mourned the thought of the opportunity in the last 24 hours. Who have mourned the thought of their freedom for themselves and their children. Grief came knocking at my door at a very young age. I met her again today. Think twice before you course correct someone’s sadness, thou we know that America is not a real place, it’s an economic value system that undervalues the lives of most, this constant reality is still heart shattering. pay attention.