What More is There to Do?
By Caesar
Graphic by Jas Calcitas
I don’t really have anything sweet or light to offer at the moment. But what I do have to offer is my truth. I’m a black, lesbian woman living in America. The United States of America, land of the free, a place where dreams come true, yes?
Well, I’ll tell you a little bit about my dreams; they open up with the soft and sweet melodies of Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’ followed by the hollow screams of black bodies burning on the streets.
No, no my dreams are not set in the past. Oh no, they are quite current, quite new. So new, they’re set in the years 2012-2020. The years in which day after day, week after week, month after month, which turned into 8 years back to back ,black people have experienced a collective trauma so deeply ingrained in us that it became normal to watch another black man, another black woman be killed on camera. Shot on screen, kidnapped in broad daylight, body-slammed in front of a crowd. My dreams aren’t dreams, they’re nightmares. But more than that? They’re a black body's reality. Not a black person because we aren’t people, we’re bodies. Targets. Livestock.
What more is there to do? In the land of the free, why do my ankles feel so worn down? In the place of opportunity, why must I work three times as hard to even receive a chance? Here in this country, where my Ancestors were stripped of identity, culture, family, free-will, opportunity, happiness, joy, laughter, love - HERE where the descendants of those Ancestors carry the weight of the world on or backs, our necks, in our wrists, through our feet and in our spirits. Slavery, racism, generational brutality, all of it, it doesn’t go away. It trickles down into your everyday, into your reality and it’s met with confusion. Am I confused? Am I making a bigger deal out of it? They mean nigga in a friendly way, right? Am I pulling the race card?
This is Black in America. This is Black in America. This is Black in America. Jumbled confusion, questions you’ll never have answers to, trauma that will never dissipate unless the world burns and starts over. Bodies, amongst bodies, amongst bodies. Men, children and women. Names you know, names you’ve forgotten.
Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Atiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, George Floyd, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray - can you breathe? Can YOU breathe? Can you BREATHE? - Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, Gabriella Nevarez, Tamisha Anderson, Ahmaud Arbery, Aiyana Stanley-Jones.
What more is there to do when we’ve done exactly nothing? What more is there to do, when we’ve done exactly everything possible to stay out of the line of fire? What more is there to do?
Yours truly,
Caesar.