Mad As Hell

Some folks might find this rude, but to keep it a hunnit, I don't really give a...well you know the rest.

To no surprise yet another Black man was a brutally murdered in daylight in the street on camera. Yet another Black woman for no reason. More hashtags. More campaigns for justice. Anger piled on and piled on. Protests. Riots. Frustration. Pain. Outrage. Fear. On the news, you'll hear more about property damage than the unnatural, untimely deaths due to cold blooded murders that sparked them.

Let me be clear I'm not saying violence is the answer, but what do we do? We comply and still die. When we're peaceful, we get silenced or black-balled. When we have respectful, unarmed protests especially with ten or more folks, we are still labeled as thugs starting a riot or forming a mob. We own businesses, often they're sabotaged or burned down to ashes. We speak out against injustice and racism at the workplace, we get labeled as the aggressors and fired. We are punished for being Black to how we wear our hair.

We use our key to open our front door of our house and we get shot 41 times. When we get stopped with a farce of a traffic stop and don't reach but inform the officer of a license for a lawfully obtained firearm for personal and family protection, they empty the clip on us. We eat ice cream in our own home or play video games with our nephew, we get shot no matter who's with us. We wear a hoodie and die, but white men can wear hoods freely. We walk in the park, go for a jog, or have a cookout, and a white person's lie brings us harm. We take a knee and opt out of singing a song with blatantly racist lyrics that have been hidden in plain sight that we finally got hip to, they say we hate this country when the fact of the matter is this country hated us since the day they ripped us away from our homes, stole our identities, ravaged and raped our culture. A DNA test can't fix that. It can't repair all the connections lost in the trade. Everytime we make something new for the culture, it's stolen. WHAT CAN WE DO!

I'm asking as a Black woman, who comes from a strong Black man and a strong Black woman who taught me never to be ashamed of who I am. I'm asking as the Black female entrepreneur who has the audacity to dream about building businesses and community building. I'm asking as a woman who's one day going to marry a Black man and raise children who will be proud and thankful to be Black and beautiful. I'm asking as someone who is uneasy every single time a police car follows behind me even when I am doing nothing wrong and driving the speed limit. A ting of fear triggers my heart everytime I see a Black person stopped by the police praying that no senseless violence occurs because you don't have to be a criminal to be targeted, and even if you are you should have a chance to change your behavior and to choose a better life even if a befitting punishment needs to be rendered. Often times our people don't get that chance. I'm asking as someone wh