You are not black; this doesn’t concern you!

“You are not black; this doesn’t concern you!” I have heard/ read that sentence so many times this past week, it almost seems meaningless. It wasn’t always meaningless. The first time I read that on one of those sketchy handles on twitter, I had to make some serious efforts to reach deep inside my brain and make sense of it. They were simple words, simple grammaticalstructure; simple enough for an immigrant with English as her third language to comprehend otherwise but somehow, I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand if the person was being factual, assumptive, cruel, condescending or just flat out ignorant. I still don’t know the answer to that but what I know is, after having several episodes of knots in my throat trying to hold back my tears and then several episodes of letting it go and wailing, I AM A “PERSON” BEFORE A PERSON OF COLOR, PERSON OF GENDER, PERSON OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION, MARITAL STATUS, SOCIAL STATURE and whatever else tags along.This is one of the few times in my life that I am proud of the people that got out on the streets to fights as “people” and fight for a cause that honors the sanctity of humanity and what it means to be a “person”; not a black person, not a black person with a record. 

I am in no way trying to make this a sob story about how tore up I am about where the world is going but it is going to come across as such and I am okay with that. I have read millions of stories on social media websites that just goes to saying how long the hatred has been spewing in the jar of justice and how deep we are drenched in it. I have cried, I have felt empowered, I have felt bad, I have felt rage, appreciation, hopelessness and everything in between in a loop. I have also read awful things that people have said about the life of a person that no longer exists who otherwise would have been all well and alive had he not been born a man of color. I have appreciated the people that are aware enough to demand justice for this sin and I have also been told that social media activism is my way of gaining a quick fame. I am not famous, I don’t have millions that follow me, I am not an “influencer”, but I have deemed it my duty to do my part and create awareness as to why despite not being black, it is my business. I am not talking smack and expressing my disgust towards this because of a black friend who is a new mother of a black son or a black boyfriend i had in the past. I am telling the few thousand social media friends I have, how livid I am because I am a human and I couldn’t imagine being a person whose life gets taken away while I plead for life and mercy with my only fault being the amount of melanin on my skin.

There is a wave asking for change and if doing what I think could may be create a pinch in someone’s heart, one person’s heart makes me unworthy of your acquaintance then by all means, please distant yourself. I will not ask you to stay, I will in fact thank you because if you are okay with whatever happened to that man and whatever has been happening then I am certainly not okay with you. 

No mother should have to worry if their child is going to come home that night from ball practice because of his color, no father should have to teach their children what to do when a cop approaches them at the age of 10 because they are black. I couldn’t even fathom being the parent whose 7 year od daughter cries and asks why the cop would treat her differently even though she has not done anything wrong. I couldn’t imagine being the mother whose son went to the store and never came back home because he got knelt on in front of bystanders. This must stop. This is not going to stop unless people become aware of that fact that if it happened to George, it could happen to anybody. If his passing didn’t make you feel some type of way, just go back and ask yourself if you are even human. Make a choice because if you don’t choose a side now, and choose to remain silent, you have chosen a side and we hear loud and clear what you are trying to say. Speak your mind, speak for those fallen, speak to give the ones existing a fair chance at survival, SPEAK TO SAY YOU ARE A PERSON AND THIS DOES IN FACT CONCERN YOU! Correct the ones that think this is okay and if you cannot change them, you tried, you did your part, move on, educate someone else. Be the change that is long overdue.