It's so hard to watch the news. Everyone’s dying. Everyone’s hurting. Everyone’s desperate, praying for help that they're not sure is going to come.
That ache in my chest becomes a spike as youth lying under sheets flash across my TV screen. I can’t escape it. I turn the TV off and toss and turn in my bed but I feel like the gunned down are waiting under my bed, hoping I stick a foot out from under my cover so they can drag me down into my despair.
It's draining even for me, a person that fortunately hasn't been personally affected by gun violence.
One conversation that stands out in my mind took place in eleventh grade, when the Black Lives Matter movement was beginning to gain steam in my suburban high school. A classmate contributed a disputed line to a racial discussion: “They shoot each other, why do they blame the police?”
If I could go back in time with the spine I’ve grown in those four years since, I’d get myself together and say, “Who can people trust if some of them can’t even trust the police to keep them safe?”
But I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to argue. I internalized his thinly veiled racism and I thought he had a good point.
I thought he had a good point.
If not feeling means letting people walk over me, let the despair in.
Maybe I’ll thrive on it.
Maybe I’ll drown in it.
I can’t afford to care anymore.
A part of me is still bitter that as a black person, I’m expected by a lot of society to offer my perspective on any issue related at all to race. I’m expected to represent every African-American, to speak for all of us.
How can I speak for and represent 39 million people of varying personalities, upbringings, geographies, education, and ages? That bitter part of me would rather talk about my favorite music and TV shows.
But a bigger part of me knows that these issues are vital to talk about. Sweeping it under the rug doesn't make it go away.
Inequality of any kind is so hard to talk about. I worry about complaining too much, which is silly because what's wrong with complaining when there's actually things that need to be fixed? What's wrong with complaining to make people aware of underlying issues in our community that they wouldn't otherwise notice?
I understand what it's like to be scared to express your opinion. Racism, gun control, and sexual assault are just a few of the many widespread issues being faced in the United States today. They're no where near being solved but there is a dialogue about them sweeping through the nation. Let's hope the discussions never stop because we can't fix what we don't talk about.
Talking is just the beginning; words lead to action and action leads to change.
