Almost a year ago I took a business trip to a conference at Disneyland. As I walked off the plane and checked my phone for the usual social media updates I saw the name Philando Castile appear over and over on my timeline. As I read the accounts of Philando's murder my mind started swirling, my breath was quick, my heart racing, I was physiologically triggered. I boarded the Disney Express airport shuttle with white families and their children excited for a fun adventure but I was in a daze. I sat down in my seat and cried. Then I opened my work laptop and wrote the next part of this blog.
July 7, 2016
I must have been about eight or nine years old when I had a
dream I would remember my entire life. A dream that became an important part of my
black identity, something I would look back on when I searched my brain for
what makes me black with white skin and blond hair. I woke up from this dream
crying real tears, one of those dreams that felt so real that you were shook up
for hours, or as it were, forever.
My mother and I stand in a deserted field, in our direct eye line is my father tied up to a burning cross, KKK members surrounding him, laughing, taunting him, looking on me with disgust.
This was a real fear of mine. Even as a multiracial child
growing up in multiracial melting pot Hawaii. I knew from day one that the
world hated us, hated me for my proximity to us, even though I could pass as
one of them.
I think a lot about how white folks are always trying to protect their children from the world, from violence, pain, war, the tough stuff. I wish every day that I could have been protected from those things so that I didn’t have to wake up crying in the middle of the night terrified that the KKK would murder my father in front of me. AT. EIGHT. YEARS. OLD.
Today it’s not the KKK although they’re there too, four-year-old Dae'Anna watched her dad get murdered by a racist right in front of her face. My worst nightmare was a reality today for one of my sisters. She’s not the first and I know she won’t be the last.
It’s always there, the fear of violence for being all the
things: black, queer, a woman. Social media has thrown these fears into our faces
on a 24 hour cycle and I’m never surprised. My first reaction is always angry
that anyone has been delusional to ignore that this shit been happening. Angry
at the people who ever walk down the street confidently not terrified that
someone isn’t going to decide they will be beaten, raped, or killed that day.
That terror is a slow burn, I barely notice it anymore. The reason I don’t show cleavage because my teacher in high school called home to say my breasts were disruptive to other people’s learning. I guess the discomfort I would feel in learning for the rest of the year for making me feel like my teacher was looking at my breasts didn’t matter to him. The reason that I barely touch my wife in public, especially if we are wearing make-up and heels, because the second we look like any semblance of a girl-on-girl fantasy someone might decide they want to rape us. Or kill us because our love of each other means that men are obsolete and not the center of the universe. The reason I stayed my brothers keeper, 10 years his junior, I fearfully reminded him to “stop yelling” because people might feel threatened by his 6 foot plus black body.
And over the years that fear does something to you. It keeps you from living, keeps you from seeing yourself outside of the gaze of other people. I was once told by one of my white cousins during a conversation about oppression that I seem like I'm "carrying the weight of the world." To that I say yes, it feels like that sometimes.
It would be nice to get some help carrying it all, but you didn't mean you would help, you meant I should simply stop carrying it. If only that were possible.
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Yesterday morning I did the same social media scan that I always do but this time for my work's Twitter account. I was killing time before an all team meeting we had planned for the majority of the work day. And there on the left side of the screen under the heading "What's Trending" was the verdict for Philando's murderer. Usually I would turn to my all Black team and immediately inform them of this news. We would close our office door and feel our anger, pain and outrage together, something most Black folks have to wait another 8 hours until they get home to do, we are lucky.
But I didn't do that yesterday. Instead I clicked out of Twitter and I swallowed hard. Swallowed all that pain and fear. Swallowed mourning and hopelessness. Swallowed history and my own heart.
I couldn't bring myself to turn to my team and open up that place we as Black people keep locked away. It's the place that will swallow us whole and we may never get out of, the place where we feel all of the things that being Black people in this country means, all of the nuances for us individually and all of the pain of our people collectively.
Later on last night Mary and I went to a Queer Hip Hop event and before the performer came on stage wearing a leather vest and boxing shorts the event organizer took a moment to acknowledge the news of Philando's murderer being acquitted. And as he stood there speaking words of sadness mixed with words of joy for the kick off of SF Pride I did it again. I pushed Philando into that dark place and reminded myself that we still survive. I watched my Queer Black brother tear the stage all the way up and I felt the type of joy/sadness combo that's hard to explain.
And this morning I decided to open up that dark place, let it feel and give it some light.
