RACE/LIFE
Tonight is the darkest night of the year. Apt time for going deeply inward and looking dead in the face at what you find looking back at you.
In the week leading up to tonight, I saw some beautiful art, and as my writing teacher says, “really beautiful art is often really devastating”
This week I saw Notes from the Field and the PBS documentary, And Still I Rise, and found myself completely devastated by both.
Through days of feeling hard and processing and writing, I found myself filled with anger (which is really just yet-to-be-processed grief) about the happenings—both past and still very present—in these United States.
I felt like I wanted to hold on to that anger forever in order to avoid being gaslit yet again and told that there really isn’t anything to be angry about.
Instead of sitting in that feeling I found my way through it this time. I used the dark of last night—the night before the solstice to get real and grieve.
I wrote and cried and wrote and cried.
So that I could be free.
Just the other side of the darkest night, there is the Brightest Light.
Here is some of what I wrote. A look at my deepest reflections of The Race Shadow:
“I feel so angry to be revealed and give away [my anger], because I do not feel that the world deserves it.
What it’s done to my people. What horror and terror that’s been passed to me. And yes, there’s been a lot of good, but why should I give it to you? So much has to be protected so that it isn’t destroyed with the rest of our brilliant history…
There is a book called Stolen Legacies. You want to know why? Because our legacies have been stolen. Hidden at the very least.
Why should I offer anything that can be stolen away? You have proven, world, that you cannot be trusted…
So, there it is. The truth.
Why should I trust?…
The thing is, I have to go off of knowing that I and my legacy and ancestry can never really be torn down, but, in order to get there, I have to first know and honor my shadow—my deepest feelings.
This is how race functions at the deepest level; denying me my right to live in my fullest expression at the deepest level.
This is why I need support from other black women who are doing and are committed to doing this work.
This is why I need help from white allies who I will need to know and understand taking a step back sometimes.
This is why I need prayer and patience and the diligence to write myself out of the dark.
Even when I don’t feel the warmth of the light is anywhere near my face.
It’s resilience. It’s truth. It’s true.
There is medicine in my shadow. What is the medicine?
To trust anyway. To shine anyway. To Be anyway.
I didn’t want to let go of the deep feeling of betrayal and give it away to the very world that created it, but I offer it up now to be recycled and given back to the Earth.
I offer it up now beyond the rules of engagement stated by the Society and I offer it to the laws and games of Nature herself.
May this release be transmuted through my pen into something powerful for myself and my community.
May it be offered for the benefit of all people’s in their deepest hearts.”