What's real for me today
This is a messy post. The words aren't as tidy and nicely wrapped up as I'd like them to be, but I'm sharing what is real for me right now. As the US goes through the 2024 election process, this how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking during this time.
My skin is brown. I have a 10-year old kid, whose skin is also brown. I was born in the United States, and thus am a US citizen. Both of my parents came here legally from other countries, several decades ago. I won't go into the reasons why they were compelled to come to the US, that would be a long and untold history. Suffice it to say that once here, they made a living through one of the few methods available to immigrants of color -- farm labor, picking cotton and produce in fields up and down the West Coast.
During the Trump presidency, as things like the Muslim ban went into effect and groups advocating white nationalism held rallies in cities across the US, the color of my skin increasingly became a deciding factor in what I felt safe doing and not doing outside of my home.
That was the first time in my entire life I've felt that way.
Only recently did I realize how much this weighed on me. During those years, I considered the possibilities of what could happen to us out in the world. The thoughts came up:
Is someone going to say something to me because of the color of my skin? To my son?
Will we be unwelcome or treated differently because we're brown?
Will we be hurt?
Will anyone help us if we are?
I realized that, conscious or not, those thoughts were daily burdens I had been carrying for the years between 2017-2021. Many people of color in the US and elsewhere carry these fears their whole lives. And for the majority of Black Americans, these thoughts are not just thoughts, they are reality. On any given day, the color of their skin can be the determinant for whether they live or die. And that's been true for hundreds of years. It is beyond all comprehension.
None of us would choose to live a life where we have to make decisions based on what bad things might happen to us because of the color of our skin. Yet this is the situation millions of us are in. Though no one wants to live in fear, it's important to me to say that fear is present for those of us in this country whose skin is not white.
As US citizens begin to cast their votes for the leader of this country, the thought that someone who holds the highest office in the land will strive for equality, equity and racial justice by enacting new laws and new standards of behavior feels like a huge wave of relief washing over me. It makes me cry. Because for me and my son, it's personal. It's our lives.
That is my reality, and I thank you for allowing me to share it.
Love and light to you, Friend.
Comments