
On this, another Black History Month, being a part of the Black experience, which I am. I am vividly aware of my history, our stories then, and the daily making of new ones, which fill me with trepidations. Yes, the fear of my loved ones, especially my grandsons, brothers, and other male figures who have to engage in life daily while being Black and crossing paths with someone who has no value for their life, keeps me on my knees, ever prayerful! The continued, mindless, senseless killings of men of color seem to have no season of it coming to an end! How can women of color and women who aren’t but are mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, wives, and friends not be adversely affected by this social ill? The blatant disregard for the lives of our sons, brothers, husbands, uncles, nephews, and friends rips at the soul of a people. How can we move forward with assurance that our past is behind us and the future is ours to embrace optimistically when the head of our family, our men, is constantly under attack? We don’t have to know a family affected by such losses to identify with their pain?! Enough already! I lost a brother to gun violence, and time doesn’t heal that wound; it just helps in coping with the pain of such a loss. So, as we celebrate those whose sacrifices have enabled us to be where we are today, this Black History Month, it’s also should be about preserving our rights to co-exist and be allowed to live as God intended for us without this constant fear of “My God, who will be next?” This continued killings of Black men is a blight upon the moral fabric of our society and should be stopped if we are to come to that place where we can truly say we are all God’s children! This may be a pessimistic approach to seeing the future, but the reality of what seems like weekly, if not daily, occurrences deprives me of feeling otherwise. I pray and believe in God, but I am also aware of evil and its ever-present devastating effects on us all. Peace!!
