Skip to main content

Corona Diaries: When the Bough Breaks

It was weeks ago or it ten years ago when I saw a man die.

He died on Twitter. He died on Facebook. He died on the nightly news. He died on Instagram. He died again and again and again.

I shook my head and sighed deeply in exhaustion.

Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that Botham Jean, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor were killed?

A few days ago that Ernest Lacy, Dontre Hamilton, Daniel Bell were killed? 

Maybe it was just a few weeks ago and not nearly 120 years ago that my second great grandfather French, his stepson Pete and nephew Will were lynched.

Days, months and years blur together while only the names have changed and the only constant is black bodies. 

I file the images and the names and the stories safely away from emotion, yet close enough to vibrate into my daily reality.

That reality is the one where I want to go out into the our local hinterlands to buy smoke bombs because they bring me joy; but, instead I know that law enforcement is on high alert and possibly afraid and on edge.

Which means I could get pulled over in the smoke bomb hinterlands and become the next black body at most, or thoroughly frustrated at least. So I make an adjustment and don't get my beloved smoke bombs.

Then the adjustments of the past fifty years blur through my memory. Was it a couple years ago when I got pulled over and asked why I was in Hubertus? A few weeks ago when I freaked out when I got lost taking my daughter to a sleepover in another Milwaukee hinterland?

Days ago when I stood over the grave marking my ancestors' lynching?

Today, all the mental files spilled into one another and onto the floor of my mind's eye and into my consciousness.

Today, the bough finally broke.

 
Labels:

Comments

  1. ChristineJune 2, 2020 at 7:47 AM

    This platform offers the reaction options "funny, interesting, cool." How short they fall, how short we all fall, how we fall together...there are no words.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What 6 Christmas Songs Got Wrong

After Thanksgiving, a birthday party last week, another birthday party this week and Christmas coming up next week, I am officially overwhelmed. It'd take more time than I have to explain what yet needs to be done and if you're like me, you're probably overwhelmed and don't have the time nor inclination to read it all anyway. But even with an overflowing plate, I still love the Christmas season -- from setting up the Christmas tree that we got two weeks ago and decorated only yesterday, to lighting bayberry scented candles, to every Rankin & Bass Christmas Special, and the music. Oh, the music. Songs have a way of putting you in the Christmas spirit, warming your heart and next thing you know, you're hugging a stranger in the elevator. Okay, um...maybe that's just me. But alas, all songs are not created equal; and the following Christmas songs inspire and awaken anything but peace on earth and goodwill to men. 1. Christmas Shoes : This song makes my ...
21 comments
Read more

Racism & Prejudice: Brothas from a Different Mother

Next week I’m attending  a seminar on defining racism. Should be interesting because: 1) I’ve been living in the skin I’m in for nearly 43 years and I’d like to hear about any advancements on the topic; and 2) back in college, some class I took defined racism as movement, advancement or otherwise being prevented and/or restricted based upon race .  Embedded in the definition was that racism took two parties – someone in power (the racist) and someone whose rights were being violated. So according to that definition, racism is an action , not an attitude . One is a disabling trespass while the other is prejudice . I tend to agree. It’s my belief that Martin Luther King and the thousands of civil rights fighters stood up against racism . They stood up against actions that prevented people from the pursuit of happiness – whether that meant voting, drinking from a common bubbler, or not ending up as Strange Fruit on a Poplar tree when all they wanted to do was g...
15 comments
Read more

The Post I've Feared Writing

In the few years under my belt as a hack writer, I’ve read a lot of posts from a lot of other bloggers, hoping to pick up on the things that make a piece great or gripping. This nonprofessional research has turned up one thing: honesty. Honesty, as in Are-you-sure-you-wanna-say-that-out-loud honesty. Yeah. That. The great pieces have always been from writers who speak from their hearts and say things that are ironically funny, sometimes painful, but always glaringly, transparently, and sometimes embarrassingly, true.   Bare. Truth. Transparency. That takes courage akin to walking on a frozen pond during the spring thaw.  Think about it: we’ve all got stories that could make us great writers – even the hacks like me, but it’s all a question of courage: what are we willing to share? Are we willing to bare some uncomfortable things?   In my case, it’s missing my mom. Oh, the coward in me will casually refer to losing her at a young age and wax philosophic a...
20 comments
Read more