The Purpose of Darkness is to Help Us See the Light
Here we are, in the midst of a pandemic struggling to find our way in the dark. During the stay at home order, we leaned more into social media platforms and virtual meetings for work and recreation. Watching and sharing more videos has become our primary way of staying current and feeling connected during social distancing. So when the video of George Floyd's murder by a police officer went viral, the world watched in horror.
The pandemic set the perfect stage for everyone to witness racial injustice and respond with outrage.
As we watched another black life be suffocated by hatred, our hearts palpitated with anguish. During a time when black lives are reportedly disproportionately taken by the coronavirus, we are reminded that our American society has been set up to keep us disproportionately at risk - for poverty, incarceration, sickness, and death.
We are wiping our tears of grief and crying out for justice, for transformation, for dismantling the systems infested with racism. We march along the paths our ancestors paved for us to continue a movement towards true equality and equity. We use our art to promote unity and community. We sing our ancestors' songs from the depths of our souls. We demand freedom from fear that our black children will have to fight the same battles our ancestors have, or simply become another hashtag, another dead black body in the streets without justice.
I know we will never be the same after the world heals from this trauma.
Now, we pray and parent with greater intention. We carry the weight of our gaze and our words with a greater sense of responsibility. We love ourselves and each other with more depth and earnestness.
Just as we grieved our social lives, our jobs, our sense of normalcy when the coronavirus spread across the world, we now must let go of every system that has operated as if black lives don't matter. As we ache for the lives lost and press toward change, we can also rejoice. The world is awakening from its ignorant slumber. The darkness of hatred is no longer hidden behind masks of mediocrity and passivity, of injustice and deceit. Before this, the darkness of racism was acceptable while blackness was criminalized.
Not anymore, this is the dawning of a brilliant, more loving world.
As I continue to watch humanity find its way, I shed tears of grief for the lives lost and gratitude for the birthing of a new era. I can't help but sit in wonder of how the darkness is necessary in order for the light to fulfill its purpose. When I reflect on our history (the shared facts and the omitted truths), I observe that the darkest times have been catalysts for the most brilliant revolutions. The death of one way of being births a new age. I've seen it in my own life and I celebrate it now as we all resurrect from the darkest time of my generation into more evolved, more enlightened versions of ourselves.
It seems the best way to defeat the darkness is to join the revolution by shining in your own unique way.
As I wiped my tears of grief that day I heard the news of another death, I turned my pain into poetry -
I Am determined
to always see the Light
peeking through the shadows
of silent cries for mercy
Lord
have
mercy
There are souls being snatched
from destiny's intentions
and sent home too soon
bruised and breathless
And I grieve in the shade
I shed black tears for every
brown body strangled
by hateful hearts
Evil's knees press on necks
While saints kneel
in prayer
We all bleed red,
but only our blood is
striped across this flag
and displayed on public platform
The real pandemic
is fear
and death is a threat
for any black man
breathing
with or without a mask
Can you see us?
standing in the light
with our hands up
hearts beating
with love and passion
and muffled anger
We dance
in the storms you create
and our feet
our feet
are growing weary
of this wretched beat
Yet I Am determined
to breathe
in this Light
this hope
that this too shall pass
and justice will wear
an eternal grace for those lives
that are taken
May we all
be determined
to keep breathing
and speaking
and shining
and crying
and marching
and fighting
and being
and being
and being
Light.
- Tifani K, June 2020
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