There is no happily ever after for Black people. Continuous struggle, only to meet with unexpected tragedies, depicts Black life. Single mothers, and children dealt an unfair hand in life, represent my nation. The Black men of our lives exist on the periphery of society, and often, non-factors in their families. The only parent I’ve ever known has had to fearlessly face a hostile world, to carve out a life for herself and her children; alone. I’ve lived long enough to see the forced toughness, and hard exterior a Black woman adopts, breakdown. Toughness not being her true nature; ideally she would be a supportive force as the woman in a relationship with a man, based on complementarity, raising healthy children. But we have seen no idealism. Our reality is so permeated with dysfunction, that it has come to represent us. Forces beyond our control or grasp tear our families asunder, creating individuals suffering on an island. Carrying with us the unexplained pain of an incomplete upbringing, we’re forced to function day-by-day, unprepared for the world we inhabit. And yet we’re unfairly judged by the same standards as those descendants of our erstwhile enslavers, and indisputably the inheritors of blood money.
9.19.2018