THE BS OF "COLORBLIND"

You really have to know that the phrase, "We don't see color; we're colorblind" is ABSOLUTELY offensive and racist. If you're looking at me and don't see color, you are trying to dissolve me down to a "common denominator" that won't make white people uncomfortable. Sometimes it comes out like, "you're not like other blacks" as if that is supposed to be a compliment (it's NOT; that too is an insult).

I see color. I hear accents. I taste the distinct flavors of national and ethnic foods. I touch people's lives and let them touch mine. I enjoy the diversity of my friends from a variety of nations, from vast backgrounds, from the spectrum of the rainbow. SEEING it, HEARING it, TASTING it, TOUCHING it. THAT is the Kin-dom of God, not some fake "I don't see color." And PLEASE quit saying that Martin Luther King, Jr. called for a colorblind society. No. He. Did. NOT. He said he wanted a world where his four children would be judged by their character, not the color of their skin. That is not the same thing as "don't notice that my beautiful children are black." That is: don't let your white supremacist racist notions lead what you think about my children before you even know them.

© Valerie Bridgeman
July 17, 2013

POSTED ON FACEBOOK

LET ME SAY THIS

Let me say this: 

I resent (right word) people changing the words of what most (I get this does not apply to all) people are calling for regarding the Zimmerman trial and the killing of Trayvon Martin. We weren't in the jury room, true. But we do not believe justice was served. We want justice--not vengeance. To say that Zimmerman "profiled" Trayvon, but it wasn't a "racial profiling" is an insult to our ability to process information. The police on the scene did the same profiling, never doing due diligence with the scene, not once considering it a possible crime scene and so the evidence was corrupted. And Trayvon was in the Sanford morgue as a "John Doe." They had his CELL PHONE. He could have been identified in minutes. His father didn't report him missing until the next morning because he thought Trayvon had gone to the movie with his older cousin. Dad just went to bed, thinking he'd get in late. The next morning, he reported it. When the police arrived, they showed him a picture of his dead son.

It is true that GZ is a pariah in public opinion and his life will never been the same. It is not cruel for me to say that no one's life should ever be the same if they kill someone, even if I believed it were self-defense (which I don't), even if it were war. Taking a life should change you. And mercy for his family because of course their lives are changed as well. But while I can feel the sympathy for them, GZ is still alive. Sybrina Fulton, Tracy Martin, and Trayvon's brothers will never hug, talk with, play with their son and brother and friend again. I just think that requires a bit more sympathy than Juror B37 seems to think. And no, I'm not "letting this thing go" for a while. I know that there are other issues and other people wrongly treated. Trayvon's case just coalesced the anxiety, angst, dread, trauma that is always just below the skin in this racist culture. You can de-friend me if my black mama trauma is making you uncomfortable. Go ahead. Please. Do.

© Valerie Bridgeman
July 17, 2013

Posted on Facebook

DEAR SYBRINA FULTON

Dear Sybrina (Fulton),

I am thinking of you today. I wonder how your heart is? You've been called into an historic moment that no one would want. 

I, too, am the mother of sons. I don't know what kind of boy Trayvon was.  But his friend Rachel said he loved his mother very much. It made me smile as my heart aches for you--partly because it reminded me of days when my sons lay across my bed regaling me with stories from their day. Or times they talked sports with me, always ending with a hug and a wet kiss on my face. That's what I thought of when Rachel said, "Trayvon really loved his mother." I thought: he was a mama's boy. And if that's true, then I can only imagine the grief that comes with his absence. 

I have not had either of my sons die. But I remember nights when they were just out being "boys" and didn't come home on time. Terror gripped me every time. I never went to bed until I knew they were safe. The only exception was when I was out of town and they were in the care of their father or trusted friends. But "safe" is always a moveable negotiation for black boys. We know that too well... and certainly you know it better than me. 

I am rambling, but mostly because I just want to touch you and let you know you're not alone. I don't pretend to know how to comfort you. But I hope all the outpouring of support and all the outrage that mirrors or mimics your own helps. I hope. If it only leaves you empty, that too will be alright. You must grieve in your own way and our collective need for your public grief is our own trauma to manage. I hope you trust me when I say you owe us nothing. We, this society, that man, systemic racism has already taken your prince. And while you are gracious and are giving us a foundation, your dignity, your quiet grace, your abiding faith, your firm resolve, I want you to know that I know that it is an abundant gift that you do not owe us. 

In the meantime, I and so many others pray for you, for Tracy, for Trayvon's brothers and all the family we don't know and friends we wish we were. God sustain you in this season. Be gentle with yourself. Be as kind to you as you are to us.

With deep Honor,
Valerie

© Valerie Bridgeman
July 17, 2013

ON ANGER

ON ANGER

It serves those with power and privilege to tell those who are angry to "cool their jets" or (as I was told) to use "appropriate anger." It serves white supremacy and white privilege (even when it's in black- or brownface) to say that black people are dividing this country because some of us are traumatized by the Zimmerman verdict. It serves dominating cultures to say that those on the margins created the problem and are the ones with the "us vs. them" mentality and the country would be better if "you black people" would "just get over it." It serves colonialism for people to "choose" the "right kind of black" (I wish I made these things up) to speak in this time. Now I know it's hard for people to hear raging, screaming black folk, but when you characterize EVERY black person who is speaking as "raging and screaming" then it's going to be hard to hear it.

Let me say this about "appropriate anger:" In a situation in which I had the misfortune of being, black people had been speaking to a concern for several YEARS (not days or weeks, YEARS). It took one white man to stand with them for their concerns to be looked at seriously. And when authorities came back to me I was told, "now this is appropriate anger." Not the anger of those who were directly affected, but the anger of the speaking white male. PLEASE don't tell me black folk are the problem of the color line. That chalk is white.

Thank you to non-black friends who are risking their white card to make this case. I know it means outing yourself and risking having to clean up that "friend's list." But right here, in the face of black mama trauma, is where your being an ally counts.

© Valerie Bridgeman
July 16, 2013

POSTED on Facebook

NO WORDS

I am a mother now
no poet, no words
to tell this terror, to hug
you Darius or Deon or DaShade
nothing that will hold you Jonathan
or Keith or Cedrick in place
I am no poet in these times
of sorrow when verdicts
may be lawful but are damnable
to our lives... I wish I had
something wise to say
as your mother as
the one you call so often
to tell me what wearies
you, but tonight.. not. one. word.

© Valerie Bridgeman
July 15, 2013

THE GREAT LIE

THE GREAT LIE:

In the wake of my grief and trauma as a black mama, I just want to address the GREAT LIE. I am SICK TO DEATH of people opining that black people don't get outraged about black-on-black crime, that more black boys die at the hand of black people than white cops and "y'all ain't crying about that."

Let me disabuse you of your lie, of your fantasy, of your pathological presumptions that we are so sick with the gaze on racism that we can't see or smell death unless it comes white-on-black crime. It is a lie that we don't cry for our boys when they turn on themselves. OR that we are not working on these problems in an ongoing way. We were "up in arms" when 70 people were shot in Chicago over the long 4th of July weekend (no freedom in that). There are MANY of us constantly crying about the violence against black women and working on it.

Our turning our gaze on a historic racist system that is DESIGNED to allow people to be killed with impunity and has disproportionately been allowed against black bodies does not diminish the work. But this case seemed "open-and-shut" and we (I am a black mama crying and HOPING) hoped that a jury would start not with, "was Trayvon Martin hitting Zimmerman when he got shot," but with the notion that a black child at the half-time of an all-star game walked to the store to get his little brother skittles and himself tea and was talking on the phone with his friend since elementary school. It was raining. He had his hoodie pulled up and then he notices he was being followed. He ran. As a parent of black boys it is my worst nightmare. Minding his own business. Some vigilante, some police officer (and yeah, some WHITE some BODY) could kill him/them and just walk away.

I will also admit that I find it disingenuous for anyone to say "this has nothing to do with race" and that my history (long-term and recent) with USA racism colors my grief. If I believed this had nothing to do with race, then black Marissa Alexander would not be going to jail for 20 years for shooting a WARNING shot on the basis of the "stand your ground" law in Florida. Zimmerman shot a boy who was fighting a man who was stalking him. Zimmerman shot him because he got out of his car and pursued him. Oh, I know, he shot him because Trayvon supposedly was getting the best of him. But he shot him because he intended to do so. He gets his gun back to do it again.

I am praying for Trayvon's family this morning, and for myself and all the mamas and daddies I know who grieve and have had to bury a child, or who live with the low-grade, ongoing fear that their child can be killed for LIVING while BLACK. — feeling sad.

Valerie Bridgeman
July 14, 2013

Posted on Facebook first

DESERVED

You deserve what you've gotten
and you should just suck it up 
and take it...

He is being kind as he says these words
he knows the value of band-aids ripped
fast and clean 

Valerie Bridgeman
July 13, 2103