Wearing the Mask
I wrote this two years ago; already years-weary from the racially motivated subhuman extrajudicial state-sanctioned killings of Black people. A boy named Antwon Rose, 17, was shot three times in the back by an officer. A boy. Not unlike Andres Guardado. A boy. Shot. In the Back.
Though I wrote this two years ago, it resonates today, where the protection of this skin is so thin, and the onslaught is relentless, and sleep flees.
Being seen is a complex thing: being noticed can be fatal. Black skin evokes everything but indifference in this racialized society. Our survival depends on anticipating, avoiding, and interpreting the White Gaze, especially when armed by law enforcement.
Disappearing from view then becomes life-giving.
I say this because I have disappeared. My words are insufficient. I can’t distill this rage, this grief, effectively.
I watch and listen as some Christians casually discuss the value of my life in terms of black-on-black crime and abortion centers, while lifting not one finger to solve the problems they repeatedly point out. Dead Black baby statistics are tit-for-tat reaction; their lives don’t really matter to these armchair Pharisees, either. Black death is a subject so detached and devoid of compassion in this caustic, toxic culture.
See how blithely brothers and sisters turn the channel, shut their ears to preachers and peers, because the mere inconvenience of hearing about racism upsets their fragile sensibilities. Watch how lovingly they protect the idols of wicked confederate traitors, with guns and vitriol blazing; then look at protestors as paid opportunists and thugs. Looking for the living among the dead; seeing us without seeing.
No wonder we exit. No wonder we wear the mask. The mask is our armor, our shield from the Cain-like cruelty of brothers and sisters.
Sometimes resistance looks like self-care. Moisturizing, deep conditioning rebellion.
A statement: I WILL CARE FOR THIS BODY. I get tired of crying out, WHO WILL CARE?! I become my own answer.
We are sacred. God-made. I need to rehearse the truth because the barrage of deceit is relentless. Free-radical lies that poison tender skin.
The days are heavy with lamentation. Antwon Rose wrote his own elegy. Children are separated from their parents in cruel and varying ways--all legal. Legality has been cruel to my people.
We wear the mask*, a thin barrier to keep us tender and the lies at bay. To gather us together, tight. To keep our words few as we rage and mourn beyond what tongue can tell.
Some days, you don't deserve to see us fully.
*read Paul Lawrence Dunbar.