This year has been a year not very different for too many Black people, in a sense.  Economic and healthcare disparities are greater, due to Covid-19, police are still legally progressing in murdering us in the streets and now, in 2021, Juneteenth has been recognized as a federal holiday, but it’s not justice at all.  Justice looks starkly different from the Black person's experience, and it would take hours on end to begin unpacking this experience. The truth is, it is just not safe to be born Black.…. Juneteenth was marked as the day for freedom of all slaves in the United States and was followed by celebration on June 19, 1865, but as we all very well know - Black people are still not free.  Mass incarceration of Black people in the US is grossly disproportionate, in comparison to any other sociological racial group, as Black people represent approximately 12-14% according to the US Census in 2010.  How can that be?  Easy as pie, institutionalized slavery (economic stopgaps beginning as early as school-aged, housing, job, education, health, social, etc.…), legitimate slavery (13th Amendment), and personified comatose unconsciousness (self-inflicted hate and harm, the perfect combination of living the American dream).  

 

With oppressive laws created on the basis of race, skin color, hair, and other physical appearance that we were all born with - through systems created by lawmakers with bias and hate for Black people, we are still not free; with modern-day lynching happening all over this world of Black men, women, LGBTQ+, and children; we are still not free; the economic instability of the Black person, that was generationally strengthen from Black Codes that existed, coupled with the psychological chains of slavery that Black people live with and through, both conscious and unconsciously --- we are still not free.  

 

So, to all of our allies, that lift their fists in the air in unity and solidarity please know you are loved and appreciated for who you stand to be for Black people, and your job is just beginning - if you accept to continue in this challenge.  When you find yourself tired, exhausted, ready to rest, take a vacation, go to the park, drive to the store, or simply have an enjoyable night out with friend and families, we ask you to think about us Black people in this fight, born out of the womb and thrown into a fight we never asked to be in, we ask you to think about Black people with anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and other mental health diseases; that have been impressed upon us by society, each and every day with many of us unable to get the healthcare we need because the founding fathers succeeded in their planning, strategy, and execution of a dream deferred; we ask you to ask yourself - damn if I’m tired what the hell our Black brother and sisters feeling?  If you call yourself an ally or accomplice and it doesn’t hurt, it has not cost you anything then you are not doing it right.  You must speak out for Black people for it IS a death sentence for them.  Death = social ostracizing, job/career promotion, disownment of other Black people of a different culture, the elephant in the room identity, horn bias, the angry Black female, male, or predator child bias…. you get the idea.

We must remember all of the Black lives that were stolen from us, for we must never forget.  To forget is to become comfortable, to become comfortable is to align with the indoctrination of further colonization, doing this brings forth self-imposed destruction, a mental suicide of sorts.  Stay woke out there, happy Juneteenth.  Free-ish since 1865.