8.9.14. The day that changed everything. 2 years.
I’ve been anxious about this day coming ever since August arrived. I could feel the heaviness of my heart as soon as I opened my eyes today.
I’m thankful for Mike, and for everyone who refused to be silent about his murder. I’m thankful that the movement (that’s always existed) was ignited on a new level. I’m thankful that we are no longer tolerating the racial injustice that very much exists in what so many want to believe is a “post-racial society.”
But I’d be lying if I said I’m not impacted or concerned by the trauma that black people have relived over and over in just these 2 years alone.
2 years of police murders, hashtags, protests, non-indictments in a never ending cycle.
2 years of listening to the media criminalize the victims and prove they deserved to die, in a way that we never see done to non-black victims.
2 years of our friends, people we grew up with and love, showing us their bias and racism through social media posts.
2 years of the overall society constantly reminding us that our lives don’t matter, through the condoning and justification of our murders.
2 years of selective grief, where America can mourn and show empathy for the deaths of animals, police officers, and victims of foreign terrorism but show not an ounce of those feelings for black lives.
2 years of people bringing up “black on black crime” as if black people have this phenomenon of killing each other when statics tell us that the majority of ALL crime is intraracial (not to be confused with interracial…I literally have had to explain this to people).
2 years of debating #BlackLivesMatter and all lives matter but then those same people say blue lives matter, proving that it’s solely the ‘black’ that’s the issue.
2 years later, all these feelings are pouring out of my eyes. I’m tired. I’m traumatized. I’m hurting. I’m grieving. Im educating. I’m fighting. And I’m thankful for all the people who are on the ground, organizing, educating, running for office, and any other effort towards freedom.
2 years later, the movement lives and we will win.
Aleidra Allen 