Gratitude to Anima Vox

Many thanks to Tadeau and Carole Ott Coelho of Anima Vox for using my words from Am I Next in your first Cafezinho performance honoring Black Lives Matter. To view the full mini concert recorded on June 22, 2020, fast forward to 5:00.

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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 without th

My Anger

Anger drains me -- emotionally and physically. It is an act of violence against myself and I try not to experience it intensely for this reason. The celebration or glorification of the culture of violence angers me especially when it is done by a person who has been given authority. A priest in my archdiocese posting a photo on social media of himself holding an automatic firearm, a weapon of war, while wearing his clerical collar angers me greatly. As a Black woman in a southern state, I am aware of the use of law and order rhetoric as a racist trope as is the priest's expressed intention of "protecting my people and property." We also live in a period when stand your ground laws are used to justify murder. Sadly, I remember the murder of a child, Tamir Rice, who was killed because he was a Black boy playing with a toy gun. There are many people who respect firearms and use them for hunting and sport. They understand and respect the deadly force at their fingertip. Gro

The Legacy of Their Names

The soil of Turtle Island is forever drenched with the innocent blood of its first inhabitants - men, women and children who had their humanity denied. In right relationship with the Creator and creation, the First Nations were considered obstacles to your insatiable greed. The God you trusted to bring you safely across the Atlantic was too small for this new life. Putting aside loving your neighbor as yourself, you chose to worship at the tarnished altar of the golden calf. A bounty of unfamiliar natural resources were no more than tools for personal wealth as you coveted ownership instead of stewardship. Walking this land from time immemorial, you found their presence to warrant a litany of broken promises, infected blankets, and genocide. In spite of you, some survived only to be denied access to their ancestral lands before being forced to walk the Trail of Tears - their own via dolorosa. We hear echoes of their presence here in their descendants and in the legacy of t

Leslye's Labyrinth

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