We have got to stop living in fear, it is killing us and it is the leading impetus for us killing one another. Even in our attempts to connect and have civil dialogue, produces the horribly ineffective Call-Out culture. Which is frustration met with ignorance that produces...fear. Fear of speaking out and saying the wrong thing. Fear of calling someone the wrong name, or pronoun. Fear of not being seen, heard, or understood if someone does refer to us improperly. Fear that my Black skin makes me a target for police. Fear that my Black skin makes me predisposed to violence: a condition triggering eradication to police. How can we coexist if my being is a threat and conflict is not allowed to exist without civility?  

Pretending that race is the crux of the issue is incorrect. Racism and our inability to discuss race civilly pales in comparison to our society's proclivity for sexism, heteronormativity, and misogyny. If we have only our last three Presidential elections as evidence for this bold claim, I believe there is enough to substantiate my argument. For the sake of time, I'll ask you to consider the idea; that for as racist we are, we are even more sexist as a society. It places women and really anyone not identifying and presenting as a masculine man who is also a person of color in a double bind of oppression.  If you are white, and have white children would you buy your son a Barbie? Would you buy him a Barbie with dark skin? Not Moana. Not Princess Jasmine or some other Disney-fied palatable brown person, but a regular darker skinned doll. Could he have it? Would you be okay if he married a woman who looked like that doll? Would you welcome her into the family? If you had a daughter, would you let her cut her hair off? Would you support her if she took her girlfriend to prom?   Would you tell her that being a bride pales in comparison to being a CEO?  Still it is not any one thing. Racism, Sexism, Ageism, instead it is a mix of all of them, cut with Class and an overall vulnerability that is so deeply uncomfortable it moves us to action when we are asked to accept what we have come to know as: the other. 

I had a conversation recently with a man I was dating who begged me not to be the type of mother who told my children not to call their sexual organs by their proper names. When I asked why, he said I should allow them to be innocent as long as possible. Innocent or ignorant?  

I was recently put in a corner and asked to defend my sexual freedoms. My ability to have sex with whomever I choose whenever I choose, as long as it was healthy and consensual. Firm in my stance not to claim myself a whore just to make those around me comfortable. I would not define myself as something meant to demean and degrade, I find no empowerment in that. I especially do not find it empowering to claim such titles as others hold them over my head, laughingly and taunting. Waiting to prey on the shame women usually feel at being called such names: slut, whore, or even bitch. I will not become that for you. To uphold the value that your chastity or sexual discretion makes you more pure, more desireable, more of a woman.  

I take my cues from James I am Not Your Negro Baldwin who proclaimed that white people created the Negro and it was with them that the Negro would reside. The Negro, he explained, was created to embody everything that white people did not accept or internalize within themselves. The negro was ominous, untrustworthy, uneducated, and inhuman. And Baldwin refused to be that  . Why should he? Why is it that we are unable or unwilling to look at these undesireable traits that we attribute to "The Negro" or "The Fag" or "The Dyke" or "The Whore" or "The Retard" and own that we have all of those traits within us? Does it hurt that badly? 

I think of the issue of abortion. Hot topic that some see clearly as women's reproductive rights, and others see as a right to life. I consider myself pro-choice and yet I find the idea of abortion to be...well I would like to think that it would never be an option for me. But truthfully? I can't say that for sure. I can't say what I would have done if I found myself pregnant after my assault. Or even, now. Jobless, not in a relationship, not entirely independent. I would like to think that I would and could make it work as I believe I deeply in the sacredness of new life. And yet, I cannot say it for sure. It is not to say that assault is the only possible or probable rationale for a terminated pregnancy, but that was my own experience that gave me a glimpse into my own grey area. That experience allowed me to extend empathy to other women who may be facing the choice themselves. 

It is why I believe sharing stories is what saves us all. I don't know how else to fight racism other than to tell you the story of my blackness and how akin it can be to whiteness or latinxness or queerness et. al. Maintaining to my core that my identities give me a different experience of humanity but make no mistake. I am human. I am a feminist and I love men, I believe in the utility of masculinity and male presence. It does not mean I will not hold men accountable for their actions. It does not mean I will shrink, bend and twist myself into the type of woman society tells me to be in order to preserve the male ego. I am Black and I respectfully nod to law enforcement and public civil service. It does not mean that I will not speak out on the systematic genocide of people whose skin looks like mine at the hands of those in power. No...in fact it is my love that insists I tell the truth. Because that is how I love, with honesty and a vested interest in our growth and development. 

For the friends who want to know how to jump in the social justice double Dutch without getting smarted by the swinging ropes of language policing and the blame game? I can't promise you that. In fact, telling me your discomfort keeps you silent only adds fuel to my kindling because it is a privilege denied to people who look like me....or, people who look unlike you. Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be willing to learn as you go. Be willing to share your story and be willing to listen to the stories of others. Not to defend a position, not to solve a problem or add understanding. It's not the time to play devils advocate; listen because their story could be yours in a different circumstance. Search yourself for the emotions that they/we describe as their story is told, locate where those emotions reside in you and allow yourself to feel them fully. Show up even after you pissed everybody off. Show up after everybody pisses you off. Show up even after another black life has been taken with no justice to his or her murderer. Show up after more police are vilified as the poor judgment of one taints the collective. Show up amidst a Trump tirade, a Planned Parenthood protest, or a Muslim flight ban. Show up and listen and share and continue listening and sharing because that is relationship building. Black Lives Matter is both true and aspirational. It is a fact, but it is also a call to our greater society to prove it. If, in fact, All Lives Matter, then saying that Black Lives Matter would, in theory, only support that claim. But right now, the two things feel dissonant and that is because...they are. We need to hear each other, we need to show up and remain steady in times of pain and despair and we have to learn how to heal together. That is camaraderie. That is empathy and that is humanity. And that...that is what the oppressed ask for. That is what the riots demand. See. My. Humanity.  

Treat me as you would your son or your daughter who, surely, you see as human. See my transgressions as flaws in judgment or action rather than as a flaw in who I am as a being. Believe in my ability to learn and grow,  nurture my talents and my abilities. Do not fear them because they look different or even more brilliant than your own. If you believe in an almighty God, why do you also believe that as I win, you must lose? Surely a God of omnipotence has created a world in which we can all be loving, sacred, successful, thriving and whole creatures? So, then, my accolade does not bind you. My bravery does not weaken you. My haughtiness should not silence you and my brilliance should not blind you. Because an all-powerful God has put rainbows in the sky for all of us. Your misfortune is not to be blamed on anyone, life is a series of ebbs and flows, waxes and wains. The moon does not lash out at the sun for illuminating the morning sky; instead it is patient because it knows that it's time to shine is coming. 

My fellow Americans, do not fear your potential to fail. Your potential to misstep. Your potential to create ruin or wreck havoc. It is in us all. Just as our light thrives, our shadow lives also. Do not demonize a people because of your fear to gaze upon your whole reflection. Do not force upon anyone the role of Negro, the role of Whore. Instead, understand where the need for that comes from. Listen to the story you tell yourself, and then believe you have the power within you to change it.