Silent No More
I can't sleep. I just keep hearing his name in my head. Jordan Edwards, a 15 year old Black male, killed last week, by police after breaking up a house party in Texas.
There have been countless before him and even a few who have been killed since. Not to mention the number of teenage youth that have gone missing in urban areas across our nation over the last year.
Where there was once outrage, now there is mostly silence.
Are we getting use to being diminished and decimated?
Maybe it's that the tears have run dry and where rage once occupied our spirits, utter disbelief and self-preservation have been replaced. Self-care is a term that I've seen frequently. Ways to keep your sanity when everything around you seems to be unraveling, but when does hiatus become evasion?
I see it in myself. I used to pay homage to the deceased by posting on my social media page the unofficial anthem of those lives that have been stolen from us far too soon, "Hell You Talmbout" by Janelle Monae. I would say their name and pray for their souls and for justice to finally be served, only to be disappointed by the outcome.
Not only do I have children, a little black boy and girl but I have teen aged cousins, whose lives I am deeply invested. We live in Washington, DC, one of the cities targeted by the abduction of Black youth, on top of high crime rates, due to high unemployment and few opportunities for advancement. Being 'woke' to these issues while grieving for my Mama daily, scratching and surviving, mothering two young kids and being an artist, can get overwhelming. I hardly find the motivation to create. I catch myself sitting and staring, deep in thought about all of it. When I come to it's usually because my kids knock me out of my trance and back to mothering I go.
I intended this blog to be my release, wanting an actual happy place I could retreat to whenever time would permit but it's turned into the place I go to expose the darkness I carry to the light. It's a merciless world but being able to express myself, be heard and maybe even understood gives me peace.
Jordan Edwards, we say your name.
There have been countless before him and even a few who have been killed since. Not to mention the number of teenage youth that have gone missing in urban areas across our nation over the last year.
Where there was once outrage, now there is mostly silence.
Are we getting use to being diminished and decimated?
Maybe it's that the tears have run dry and where rage once occupied our spirits, utter disbelief and self-preservation have been replaced. Self-care is a term that I've seen frequently. Ways to keep your sanity when everything around you seems to be unraveling, but when does hiatus become evasion?
I see it in myself. I used to pay homage to the deceased by posting on my social media page the unofficial anthem of those lives that have been stolen from us far too soon, "Hell You Talmbout" by Janelle Monae. I would say their name and pray for their souls and for justice to finally be served, only to be disappointed by the outcome.
Not only do I have children, a little black boy and girl but I have teen aged cousins, whose lives I am deeply invested. We live in Washington, DC, one of the cities targeted by the abduction of Black youth, on top of high crime rates, due to high unemployment and few opportunities for advancement. Being 'woke' to these issues while grieving for my Mama daily, scratching and surviving, mothering two young kids and being an artist, can get overwhelming. I hardly find the motivation to create. I catch myself sitting and staring, deep in thought about all of it. When I come to it's usually because my kids knock me out of my trance and back to mothering I go.
Jordan Edwards, we say your name.
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