Here we are. 2020. With Trump in office (still). In the middle of a global health crisis. In the midst of all our privileges being ripped away from us, at least that’s how we, the entitled, feel.
No gym? No Sunday Brunch in the city? No going outdoors unless it’s for groceries? Social distance from my family? But we’re all pretty healthy over here? WHAT KIND OF TWILIGHT ZONE NONSENSE IS THIS?
When you remove the pleasures, you get some frustrated folks. You get folks looking for ways to spend their time. You get folks searching for ways to add meaning to their lives because what was so easily theirs, is no longer. Imagine that?
Imagine a system that won’t allow you to succeed by being employed and providing for your family? Imagine a system that tells you where you can and cannot travel to? Imagine having to be the nanny, the parent, the provider, the chef, the teacher, the play date and not know what self-care is. “IMAGINE THAT?” say all the Black people.
George Floyd’s murder at the hands of an evil cop is what lit a fire under us all but not only that; it was the very cavalier manner in which it was done. It was his last words. It was watching him die while we do nothing. It forced us all to come to terms with the question, have we ever done something about this? We do realize racism isn’t new, this is what sweeping it under the rug looks like. Now what will we do? I won’t go into resources here as they are all over if we just search for them but I do want to briefly share why I got emotional during my first ever protest.
Marching down Broadway and 165th street in Uptown Manhattan felt pretty special for me. This is Dominicanville as I call it. Platanoland. Where my people are. Where I would go dancing for my bachata y perico ripiao back in the day because that’s where all the poppin’ spots were. Where the tigueres en la esquina were once attractive (read: the smart, cunning, hood dudes on the block). Where some of my people deny their blackness.
To see my own community come together to demand justice + equity for Black lives when our Motherland (the Dominican Republic) is wrought with colorism and racism, was something to wrestle with but not something to overlook. As we marched on toward Harlem, onlookers stopped, honked, dropped beats with pots and pans from their windows, a protestor had his whole drum line with him - I MEAN WE BROUGHT THE MAGIC y la MUSICA! I couldn’t overlook this moment, something was happening, something is happening in the air. No need to put a finger on it, coin it nor define it but I felt it.
What I experienced that day was that while some of us are discouraged, feel defeated, and have lost all hope in America, we still RISE. We rise in battle. We rise in joy. We rise in civic engagement. We rise by speaking up. We rise in community. We rise in awareness of self. We rise in prayer. We rise with our very breath. We rise on the shoulders of those who came before us. We rise, until justice is served. And even after that, we will rise in eternity.
Btw, I do consider myself as a part of you but the world does not see me that way - therefore - I rise, for you, my fellow Black people. This white passing Latinx will forever raise her voice against the injustice she sees (yes, I say white passing because I refuse to say that I am white yet, I do recognize my privilege) … your lives more than matter. They are valuable + precious + you deserve to LIVE THEM FULLY!
(PS I didn’t want to share these videos because they were solely for IG, hence their format, but guess what, we doing it anyway!)
“They may kill you with their hatefulness,
But still, like air, you’ll rise.”