A Small Tribute to Black Life

This week's post will be a little different from the norm in that I will use it to introduce a short YouTube video I created…

After the murder of Ma'Khia Bryant, which was ON THE SAME DAY OF DEREK CHAUVIN's CONVICTION, I realized that I had feelings of grief and anger that I needed to process and what better place to do so than my personal blog. So if you are with it and you understand this need, feel free to read on. If you do not get it and want to tell me how I should react to state-sanctioned violence and white supremacy, be blessed... because I do not want to hear it. 

 
 

So, for those of you who are still here...

After months of trending videos, hashtags, black squares, workshops, think pieces, and insufferable performative allyship, Derek Chauvin was finally Convicted of murder. Of course, many people took this moment as an opportunity to exhale. "At last, we have justice," they said.

Side Note: Justice would have been ending qualified immunity and police brutality years ago... But I digress.

Unfortunately, as Derek's trial was happening between March 8th and April 20th, black people and the rest of the world were being reminded that...

  1. Being a member of the armed forces does not spare you from racism (US Army 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario)

  2. You all will never cease to come up with bullshit excuses to avoid taking any type of accountability (Daunte Wright). Sidenote: How you can be a 26-year police veteran and a field training officer but not know the difference between a taser and a handgun is BEYOND ME...

  3. Even if we comply, you all don't give a F*ck and will kill us regardless (Adam Toledo);

  4. A white child who killed people with an AR-15 style rifle deserves more care and support than a black child who is carrying a knife in self-defense (Ma'Khia Bryant); and

  5. You all really don't give A SINGLE F*CK about black and brown children and their safety (Adam Toledo/Ma'Khia Bryant)

Now if I am being honest, I already knew these facts, but as soon as the news about Ma'Khia Bryant broke, my anger could not be contained. I could not help but wonder:

IS THIS HELL? WHY DO I HAVE TO CONTINUE TO SIT IN THESE “COMMUNITY ORGANIZING” AND “ANTIRACISM” MEETINGS IF THESE DEMONIC ASS PEOPLE WILL NEVER TAKE A F*CKING BREAK??!!! FURTHERMORE, WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ONE MEETING IN THIS PERPETUAL MIDDLE AISLE WITH PEOPLE WHO CAN’T EVEN AGREE THAT MY SKIN COLOR DOESN’T ERASE MY HUMANITY?

 
Black-Jesus.jpg
 

Thankfully, I am auditing a class at Loyola University Chicago entitled “Doing Liturgy in a Racially Violent America.” There I’ve been able to process and lament the evils of whiteness with people who get it. In one of our last group projects, we created a liturgy that was themed “Sending Forth,” where we invited people to reflect on how lament can become a springboard to healing, hope, and action. While processing the realities of blackness and creating our liturgy, I introduced to “Rise Up” by Andra Day. Today, instead of dwelling on the horrible images of police brutality or writing yet another piece about the evils of white supremacy, I wanted to create space and share a video that I created to honor the brave men and women who lived and excelled IN SPITE OF WHITENESS. If you are also black, I hope this video is a reminder of how strong and powerful we are. If you are not, I hope this video inspires you to learn more about African American history like creating this video has done for me.

As a black immigrant, I will never stop being thankful for the black men and women who put their bodies on the line so I can have the right to simply live. Although I am often mad that we (Black people) have this shared, never-ending, and violent existence, I love us, and I will never stop fighting for all of us to have better lives. Until next time, I want to thank black people for continually doing the strongest thing imaginable: BEING BLACK AND SIMPLY LIVING…

 
 

Images Used in Order of Appearance:

  • Enslaved men placed on ships 

  • Fugitive Slave Act

  • The Civil War

  • Black Codes

  • Reconstruction

  • Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

  • Tulsa Race Massacre

  • Black Soldiers in the Revolutionary War

  • Nat Turner’s Revolt, August 1831

  • John Brown’s Raid

  • Frederick Douglass

  • Sojourner Truth

  • Harriet Tubman/Underground Railroad 

  • Black Union Soldiers

  • Susie King Taylor

  • Alexander Augusta

  • Black men in line voting

  • First Colored Senator and Representatives in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States

  • James Weldon Johnson, Bob Cole, and Rosamond Johnson

  • Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes

  • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

  • George Washington Carver

  • Madam C. J. Walker

  • Cootie Williams playing trumpet

  • Billie Holiday

  • Boxer Jack Johnson

  • Hattie McDaniel

  • Children playing on a Harlem street in the 1920s

  • Booker T. Washington

  • Death of Emmett Till

  • Segregation 

  • 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

  • White people opposing race mixing 

  • Death of MLK, Jr.

  • Fatal Black Panther raid in Chicago (Fred Hampton)

  • Prison industrial complex (the New Jim Crow)

  • Gentrification 

  • Names of those killed via police brutality 

  • BLM Protests

  • Image of a newspaper after pro-Trump mob riot

  • Segregation protestors 

  • Freedom riders

  • Tommie Smith and John Carlos (1968 Olympics Black Power salute)

  • MLK’s encounter with police 

  • Fred Hampton speaking at a rally 

  • Marsha P. Johnson

  • Ruby Bridges being escorted by federal marshals 

  • Black Panthers' Free Breakfast Program

  • Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, Irene Kirklady

  • Arthur Ashe

  • Shirley Chisholm

  • James Baldwin and Nina Simone

  • Mae Carol Jemison 

  • DMX (rapper)

  • Venus and Serena Williams

  • Collage of famous black musicians 

  • Black woman dancing at a block party

  • Black Panther

  • Barack Obama and family

  • People praying at BLM protest

  • Laverne Cox at speaking event

  • Kamala Harris and Amanda Gorman

  • Stacy Abram and Raphael G. Warnock 

  • Black woman wearing black voters matter 

  • Black women cheering 

  • Couples from “Black Love” Doc

  • Yvonne Orji and Issa Rae from Insecure

  • Colin Kaepernick

  • Maya Angelou 

  • Simone Biles

  • Group shot of sororities and fraternities students

  • Popular black sitcoms

  • Kid Fury and Crissle West from the Read Podcast 

  • Tyler Perry at his studio 

  • Kendrick Sampson at BLM conference

  • Jeannette Reyes and Robert Burton

  • Black Protester takes a knee in front of San Jose Police in California 

  • Protesters sprayed with pepper spray in Detroit 

  • Leshia Evans detained by law enforcement in Louisiana

  • Cori Bush

  • Michael B. Jordan, Bryan Stevenson, and Jamie Fox

  • Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

  • Tyler Burns and Jemar Tisby from the Pass the Mic Podcast 

  • Zainab Alema, first Black, Muslim woman rugby player

  • Ahmed Muhammad creator of Kits Cubed, a science education company

  • Maxine Waters 

  • Matthew Cherry, creator of Oscar-winning animated short "Hair Love"

  • Marsai Martin, owner of Genius Productions 

  • Cory Booker

  • Nipsey Hussle

  • Cicely Tyson

  • Naomi Osaka

  • Billy Porter

  • Mj Rodriguez, star of 'Pose

  • A group of educated Black men in suits

  • Jennifer Zmuda

  • Michelle Higgins, Dr. Christina Edmondson, and Ekemini Uwan from the Truth’s Table Podcast

  • Smiling black man wearing “black joy is revolutionary” t-shirt

  • Group picture at Culture Con

  • Black woman meditating 

  • Dwyane and Zaya Wade

  • Black cowboys at BLM protest 

  • Black woman reciting poetry

  • Black man carrying a BLM flag

Blackness, Reflection, HistoryNeph LesperanceComment