Skip to main content

Am I Next


Lord, have mercy.
George Floyd of Minnesota.
Your nation failed you.
Rest in God's peace.
Kyrie eleison.

Christ, have mercy.
Breonna Taylor of Kentucky.
Your nation failed you.
Rest in God's peace.
Christe eleison.

Lord, have mercy.
Ahmaud Arbery of Georgia.
Your nation failed you.
Rest in God's peace.
Kyrie eleison.

Christ, have mercy.
Tony McDade of Florida.
Your nation failed you.
Rest in God's peace.
Christe eleison.

Four people whom I never new have been murdered. It is merely the tip of an iceberg. The details of each heinous act are so horrifically unjust that there is no sense to be made of them. Each of the four was victimized. Each of them was Black, but their race was not the cause of death. Each was murdered because of the systemic structures that endow white people with an unimaginable authority and privilege based on the perpetuation of lies. The onus is not on the victims but on the perpetuators and their oppressive and unjust systems.

There is also a realization that it could have been me. I could be laying cold and lifeless in the morgue because of a distorted perception of me rooted in lies. Maybe it will be me the next time - not because of who I am, but because of how you see me in relation to how you see yourself. What lies about me do you believe? What lies about yourself do you believe?









Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for reading Leslye's Labyrinth. I welcome your comments.

Popular posts from this blog

Why I Write on Race

No, this is not what I wanted to do.  I did not choose this as my path, but it is the path on which I journey. At this time of my life, it is the path that must be acknowledged and no longer resisted. A deep sigh reveals my coming to terms with the convergence of my lived experience, my gift of words, and this moment in time.  As a citizen of the United States dealing with the heinous and flawed construct of race is inevitable. To speak about it requires inner work that I wanted to avoid. Included in the work is one essential question. Has the racial system been designed to privilege or oppress people? While many of my fellow citizens may  deny that race is relevant to them and in their lives, for those of us who identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), the truth of our nation's original sin is our lived experience. It is no secret. My parents sought to shield me and my siblings from the oppression that infiltrated our lives in an apartheid system. Even ...
6 comments
Read more

New Site

  To read the latest on Leslye's Labyrinth, visit http://bit.ly/leslyeslabyrinth
Post a Comment
Read more

When You Say, "I'm Not Racist"

When you say,  "I'm not racist," you deny the complexity of a system built on the racist ideas born of white supremacy. When you say,  "I don't see color," you do not understand that making judgements based on color is the problem, not seeing color.  When you say,  "I was taught to treat everyone the same," you deny the limitations of your being kind when the system denies my dignity. When you say,  "But, I'm a Christian," you deny the whitening of Jesus' body and the distortion of his Gospel for economic gain through the genocide of indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans, and other atrocities against people of color. When you say,  "My child is Black," you conflate your love for one person with a love for all. When you say,  "My family never enslaved people" you deny how the injustices of slavery were transformed to perpetuate your illusion of white supremacy. Wh...
Post a Comment
Read more