Someone recently posted a picture that stated "To be negro in this country and to be conscious is to be in rage almost all the time". The post sparked my interest because it became immediately apparent to me that this exact vernacular and isolated victimization is representative of my frustration with all discrimination and hate in this country. We are not only experiencing injustice on Blacks. Realize that if we simply replaced the word "negro" with "minority" everyone in this country may all start to realize their privilege. We might start to respect, and maybe even internalize the rage of other people around us. LGBT, disabled, uneducated, poor, foreign etc. So this post specifically goes out to the parents that don't support gay rights until their kid comes out gay, or the able bodied person who doesn't respect people with disabilities until they experience that struggle first hand. The people that don't support the injustice until it enters their realm or until they are forced to be able relate to it. I ask you the following questions; Who's pain are you offering support for in return for supporting yours? When you ask for someone to support your pain, do you ever consider the idea that you may not be supporting theirs?
I'm fully aware that the minds and the hearts of African American are flooded with thoughts of rage regarding Police Brutality and racism today and just about everyday for the last year. I'm also fully aware of how horrible it is and please trust that I've cried several tears this last year. I've laid in my bed crazed and confused several times because of it. Of course it hits me harder than anything else because its my strongest identity. Its relative to who I am, could happen to me at any time and it's a strong semblance of my life and where I stand on the scale of importance in this country. On the other hand, I also realize that the world is bigger than me and my disadvantages. I realize that the world is revolving. The love and fairness and kindness u put out is a portion of what u get back. So, yes I am hurting, and although police brutality on the black community is far more present in my mind than anything else, I also recognize that other people are hurting too. There are other minority groups out there that no one cares about and no one fighting for. No one is marching or rioting on their behalf, or celebrating their victories. The reality is that in the same way that we turn our heads away from them and ignore their pain people are turning their heads away from us and ignoring ours. The fight for justice and fairness has become hypocritical, ineffective, unconscious, careless and ignorant.
So, today yes my heart is sad for people like Sandra Bland and every other African American that has suffered from police brutality as well as everyone suffering in South Carolina. My heart hurts deeply for them, but I have grown to be conscious in the truest sense of the word. I have grown to understand the importance of the interconnectivity of pain and discrimination among different groups of people. So my pain doesn't stop with Black people. I also hurt for the people that no one seems to care about. For all the transgender people who cant get a job or proper medical care. I pain for any foreigner who has worked just as hard as I have, yet it still treated like an outsider, an annoyance and a degradation to the country. More than anything, my heart is in pain surrounding the fact that there is no cohesion between the Disabled, Black and the LGBT community, yet all of them claim to be fighting for the same thing. If these groups are not marching and fighting together in what we call "solidarity" then they are basically marching against the exact entity in which we claim to be fighting for. How can someone in the black community be up in arms about police brutality, but careless about the transgender aids epidemic, or the lack of ADA compliant buildings in this country. Every community is essentially asking for the same support and consciousness that they have been careless to give to others. Again this fight has become hypocritical and ineffective.
I don't suggest that you stop fighting for the things you believe in. I'm also not suggesting that you be equally as passionate about the things that affect you directly as you are about all the other injustice in the world. But I do however suggest that while you are asking for people to be conscious of the injustice that is so close to your heart, that you consider supporting the justice of people around you that don't necessarily look like you. I suggest you giving out the same support in which you are asking for. That you open your eyes and your heart to someone outside of yourself and your identity. I challenge you to take on someone else's rage, harness their pain, support their injustice. And maybe, just maybe, they will do the same for your in return. I think we may start to realize that the things we are all fighting for, the groups we represent and pain we all feel is truly not all that different. After all, pain is pain and hate it hate. There is no pain, hate, or discrimination that is greater or more important than the other.
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