@michaelharriot’s article today in the root hit me in the chest. I know this already, but it reenforced that 43M Black people live in a country created from our enslavement & upheld by racist laws written in our blood to guarantee continued trauma.

1/8

Darryl’s story reminds me that I’m alive & kinda successful because ultimately, I got lucky.

I hit a white kid in 3rd grade because he called me a racist name. Gave him a bloody nose. Only reason I didn’t get suspended or worse? The principal wasn’t there that day.

2/8

I’ve been in a car with a family member looking for revenge for a friend’s murder. I could’ve been a 13yr old kid, tried as an adult, just for being there...but we didn’t find him that night...again, I got lucky.

3/8

Like Pat, I’ve internalized racism throughout my life. I have spent every second of my educational life/career in a PWI. I was too young to have the language to express what I felt as a kid. And once I did, I held a lot of shit in not wanting to hurt my career.

4/8

Even on this platform, like many “radical” Black educators, I get racist DMs. I’ve had people call/email my school demanding I get fired, I’ve had people get ahold of my number and send me threatening texts.

As educated & conscious as I am. I still internalize racism.

5/8

My story, like Pat and Darryl’s isn’t special, it’s common. It’s the story of the Black experience in america. It’s something white people will never understand. I get why white people love america so much. Just don’t expect Us to feel the same.

6/8

How can we love a country where our collective success as a people can’t happen, & our individual success is predicated on not just working hard but getting lucky too? And not lucky with a job or opportunity, but lucky we not dead or in prison.

7/8

And that success still comes with mental & physical trauma. They don’t even tell us that in the fine print.

It’s a fucked up reality to say all this and still feel “lucky” that I’m able to share this.

8/8