Blackness.

Whether we are talking about Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, or Black books and history in schools, or Angel Reese, Blackness REALLY pisses some white people off. To be Black in America is to be despised by some people for no other reason than Blackness.

I understand how we got here. But I still struggle to understand — or perhaps to accept — why.

To those of you who will find any reason, any reason at all, to fuel your life through the oppression of mine, I ask you, why?

Why does my Blackness offend you?

Why does my Blackness intimidate you?

Why does my Blackness cause you to erase our stories?

Why does my Blackness change your definition of democracy?

Why does my Blackness cause you to emulate our music but reject the lived experience from which it springs?

Why does my Blackness surviving, thriving, and rising cause you anger?

Why does Black movement, Black breath, Black health, Black wealth, Black speech, Black joy, Black LIFE inspire hatred in you?

Why does Black anger lead to our own persecution and oppression, while your anger ALSO leads to our own persecution and oppression?

Why does Black freedom cause you to devise the most creative ways to achieve Black incarceration?

Why does Black excellence provoke howls of unfair advantage, when our achievements are simply a measure of the obstacle course we have overcome that YOU put in place?

Why does our Blackness cause you to see crime, but the crimes that you yourself have perpetuated for centuries are unrecognizable to you? The magical cloak of white supremacy is an awesome thing, indeed. It makes the visible invisible.

Why does our Blackness invoke a double standard and trigger your hypocrisy?

Why are Black lives, Black votes, Black voices worth so little to you?

Blackness is not the opposite of Whiteness — but it is the opposition to white supremacy.

Ah, so that is why. The challenge to your sense of supremacy.

It can only be that, for Blackness represents wholeness for this country, not division. To embrace Blackness is to embrace an ideal America, a whole America. It is to close a gap, to heal the gaping wound that persists. And that, in fact, is what some of you are afraid of. An America you cannot control. Power, redistributed. Power no longer concentrated in the hands of few. The choke of racism dressed as privilege finally — FINALLY — dismantled.

No, I won’t just wait for the “other side”to die off because that would make me as bad as you; but I won’t let you run out the clock on justice, either.

Because Blackness is more than our skin color, race or culture: it represents a correction, a persistence to ideal, and to accept it is to also accept almost everyone and everything else you have tried to resist in you desperate attempt to hold on to power. To hold on to control. To control this country and this world.

So, I will speak out and speak up. And I will continue to use my words and my will to say what must be said: Blackness is humanity. Blackness is global. Blackness is American. Blackness is eternal. Blackness is inevitable.

And to those of you who also have power and privilege, and see these daily macro and micro expressions of those who would hold on to their white supremacy, those who gorge themselves at the table of America’s blessings and benefits, grabbing every last bit they can until there is nothing left for anyone else in this country (or this world, for that matter), I say this: you may not agree with them, but more is needed of you than your silent disagreement. I implore you:

Go off mute.