It's not your silence that kills me... (To my social media loving, status posting, like and reaction ally)

These times that we are in is killing my spirit and energy softly. I have been emotionally disrupted with the events that have happened--- #AltonSterling || #PhilandoCastile || #Dallas and the many other events that caused a hashtag, a headline or a history of terror and trauma that have happened before and simultaneously with this time.

Writing is my release, my healing. I can no longer be quite in the spaces that I influence. Action will be my redemption. My voice matters, my vote matters the most and to all of my folks asking what can they do--VOTE!



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To my social media loving, status posting, like and reaction ally, you aren't silent and I appreciate that. But you are still killing me. You kill me softly with your impersonal acknowledgement of my pain. 

As a social media enthusiast, I get what it means to post something in the spirit of being heard, of being right there in it--to show the world outside and around you that you are conscious and aware. 

What I say next isn't about condemnation because I have failed at this too, but your status update only means words in the volume of the masses, until you ask me, your friend, am I okay, how am I doing? 

I have personally failed my friends in the LGBTQ community, when Orlando happened. Because I like you just posted a status update and thought that was enough.  But following the events of this week (July 4th, 2016), THAT IS NOT ENOUGH, that is not comfort. 

Comfort comes from those we know, care about and love, acknowledging our pain and grief. Your privilege, allows you to not understand the psychological and emotional trauma that the events of this week have caused people of color and that's not your fault. 

But let me communicate to you the experience we have and why the events are not just a news story, or a political issue, but a personal one:  when we see these videos of the torture of Black bodies we grieve for OUR brother(s), OUR father(s), OUR son(s), OUR family members and OUR friends. We feel that pain because we have a level of guilt, he wasn't a person we know (sigh of relief), but he could have been (grief). 

To walk around the spaces that I have felt safe, protected and a member of a community and to feel like no one around me, except for the lone eyes of fellow members of my marginalized community, understood what was bubbling inside me was painful. It was STRANGLING. 

To go to work with this disconnected feeling and not understand it was because my core had been rocked. But to just have this expectation that it was back to work as usual was damaging. 

To have "you" approach me and talk to me like it was JUST a news story, or the next political topic, placed cuts in an already seriously scarred wound.

In the first few days  of the wake of these incidents, two people, two allys have directly reached out to me to ask me how I am doing, specifically about these recent events, and to tell me that they are praying for the pain I am going through. TWO! It didn't mean that in a conversation that a friend didn't acknowledge my suffering or pain, but it says a lot more and feels more comforting when it isn't the one suffering that initiates the need for a comforting response. 

So today I ask you, after you post that status update, or retweet, or like, or react to the post of someone else, move #beyondthehashtag. Talk to your friend and ask them if THEY are okay. We've gotten it in our heads that these likes, these retweets, reposts and reactions are a replacement for a hug, a direct kind word, IT IS NOT!  Because as my latest blog says... I AM NOT OKAY. 

To my friends and family in the LGBT Community, I am sorry that I did not understand this during Orlando, but I know better now. 

Not Okay...

These times that we are in is killing my spirit and energy softly. I have been emotionally disrupted with the events that have happened--- #AltonSterling || #PhilandoCastile || #Dallas and the many other events that caused a hashtag, a headline or a history of terror and trauma that have happened before and simultaneously with this time.

Writing is my release, my healing. I can no longer be quite in the spaces that I influence. Action will be my redemption. My voice matters, my vote matters the most and to all of my folks asking what can they do--VOTE!


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Not Okay..

I am not okay

Humanity is not okay

We are not okay

I'm not okay with the state of terror that I live in//

I'm not okay with the blatant disrespect and violence against Black bodies//

I'm not okay with the FEAR, the PAIN, the DISCONTENT and DISORDER that lives within me//

I'm not okay with the silence//

I'm not okay with the neglect//

I'm not okay with the ignorance to not understand the TRAUMA that my community is facing//

I am not okay

Humanity is not okay

We are not okay

I'm not okay with some of the communities I belong to, not acknowledging that individuals they know are in pain and are suffering//

I'm not okay with your inability to say directly to me that you care//

I'm not okay with your inability to acknowledge that you are sorry for what I'm experiencing DIRECTLY TO ME//

I'm not okay with our society making basic expressions of compassion uncomfortable in this moment//

I'm not okay with it feeling like the only comfort I am able to receive, feel and internalize is from my community who is suffering through the same trauma I am//

I am not okay

Humanity is not okay

We are not okay

I'm not okay with seeing Black men & boys walking around me on the street and silently praying they aren't next//

I'm not okay with feeling that I'm making you uncomfortable for sharing my pain//

I'm not okay with feeling that my job is to make you feel less uncomfortable, when my comfort is continuously disrupted in the torment and torture of Black men and families//

Today I am not okay

Tomorrow I might not be okay

But my prayer, my fight, my hope is I will be ~ WE will be ~ Humanity will be

#THISISTRAUMA #THISISTERROR #NoMoreNames #BlackLivesMatter #IMatter