The Paradox of my Black Body

April 14, 2021 

My heart is heavy! I feel like it's always heavy. A lot more pain has occurred since last year with little to no progress. I'm discouraged, but I'm not hopeless. I have resilience in my DNA, so I'm not done fighting for change. I'm still here! My body is ready...my mind is not. My mind is caught in a time loop. This loop is a problem.

I was reminded of the importance of addressing the times I get in a stuck mindset when I watched Two Distant Strangers (2020). The film reminded me...

    ●  If I follow directions, I'm in danger!!!

    ●  If I do not follow directions, I'm in danger!!!

    ●  The existence in my skin...my melanin…my Black body's existence makes me dangerous. My existence puts me in danger of not getting home to my wife and kids.

 

The existence of my body shoves me to live in a state of "what if trauma?" There's no formula to ensure

my safety...no formula to ensure I'll return to my family. I'm being asked to trust a system that emotionally feels like I'm playing Russian Roulette every time I engage the system. I have to defy my biology. Reject it!!! My fight-or-flight system is ready to flee. Fighting gets me death...flight is death. Yet, there is no training to equip me for the alternative. No lifeline to rescue me. Sometimes I feel like all I have is just hope in some what-ifs…

    ●     What if my body is humanized?

    ●     What if my skin is legitimized as mattering?

    ●     What if I don't have to get to my family by any means necessary?

My body is a threat even to people who look like me. So where does that leave me? Until collectively my skin is validated...until my body is not perceived as a threat...until ending my life as a solution to the existence of my Black body is no longer an option...don't tell me it will be OK...please don't attempt to de-escalate my trauma by telling me we will get there eventually. The reality is my Black body might not get to the destination of being humanized until all life is removed from my Black body...that's a trauma mere words and hope cannot heal.

 

A Black body seeking humanized recognition,
- Professor Elgrie J. Hurd, III