Hurt

I saw segments of the funeral (no thanks to shame/black-faced BET). I was disturbed by not only Bush (wolf) and for that matter Clinton (wolf in sheep's clothing) but the centrality of an oppressive white supremacist capitalist patriarchal power structure at the funeral of a woman whose life's work and interests ran contrary to it (They monopolized the time AND the space of the pulpit). I was disturbed that pimped out preacher Eddie Long (I say confidently: he is not in tune with spirit) steered the ship. I was disturbed by the spectacle of celebrity (i.e. the woman who harangued the audience for not giving Stevie Wonder a rousing enough applause by saying and I paraphrase: "Come on you can do better than that. Give another hand to Stevie Wonder.")

To learn, via Democracy Now, of Harry Belafonte's disinvitation hits me hard. It hurts. Is the social justice movement so corrupted, so detached from itself and its aims that it would prostrate itself before the demi-Gods that exploit them? Are we that starstruck by whiteness, by privilege, by power? Lowery's the reason that tarnished, troubled, disrespectful co-opted "memorial" was tolerable. And to hear this... To hear this! To hear that on the lower frequency, the boomerang upside my head frequency, the damned if you do f#cking frequency that they don't speak like me.

I know right now that I am silenced that I am silencing myself in punk fear. That my ethics and values run contrary to instutions, employers, colleagues, friends and because I don't want to be any further marginalized I self-censor but I cannot live with myself this way. I cannot live this way. I am not living this way. Forget fear. It's time to openly, honestly, loudly, live with integrity and that may mean that institutions, employers, colleagues, friends will shun me but I'll be damned if I, if we, shun ourselves.

I have been this close to losing myself, my breath, my orientation towards the world from all the fracas around me (that I privileged) that says you're too much, you're too little, you're too wrong, and I couldn't hear me over the cacaphony.

Right living does not promise anything: not tomorrow, a rainbow, or a pot of gold. I know this but ambition and ego, stubborn as they are, get in the way. I know that all that I can expect is peace of mind and that has to be sufficient.

And I honor Ms. Coretta, Sister Rosa, myself, my Mama, my Sister, this family, even my father, the ancestors: the generations of them that loved the idea of a free me, with my life.