Today vs. tomorrow

I watch him pick up the snails so gently, understanding their precious lives, and taking good care to keep them alive. I am thinking about Elijah and how he played his violin for the rescue kittens. How he was vegetarian and wanted to make the world a better place.

Today we are mourning the loss of Daunte and Adam. Tomorrow we will mourn others. 

I am thinking of their young lives and I am thinking of Tamir and Trayvon. I am always thinking of Trayvon and how our boys’ youth will not save them. I am thinking of sweet girls in classrooms who are just kids but are already seen as young women and are treated as such. I am thinking of the Black girls who are kicked out of class because their joy is “too loud” or their bad day was seen as a “bad attitude.” I am thinking about that study where even the preschool teachers looked first to the Black children for misbehavior and I am wondering.

I am wondering how any of us can possibly hope to keep our Black and Brown babies safe when our society continues to value whiteness as “good, safe, and normal” and sees color as “dangerous, rough, and bad”. I am wondering, endlessly, if I will give Tony the right instructions, tell him the right things to make sure he stays alive but in the end, it feels somewhat hopeless. How many Black men and women “cooperated”, did the right thing and still lost their lives? Adams' hands were up. His hands were up and they were empty. What else could he have done? We shouldn’t have to prepare our children for that. We shouldn’t have to load our children with tips and tricks in order to survive a police encounter. Enough of that. 

Let the children grow. Let them be free to play with bugs and sniff the flowers. Let us be free. Let mothers joyfully soak up the sun and relax without worry or fear of the future. To echo what so many are saying today, this freedom won’t come about solely with diversity training and multicultural celebrations. Those are valuable, important components of creating a more equitable future but we need more and we need it now. We need abolition, we need liberation, and we need a radical recreation of what policing looks like in this country.

May it be so.

---

---

Today vs. tomorrow

Today we look for 
snails in the backyard 
Tomorrow we will look for
ways to make him not seem hard

Today I teach him how
to find treasures in the sands
Tomorrow I will teach him where
to slowly place his hands

Today I lead him
through flowers in the sunlight
Tomorrow I will let him go
and pray that he comes home at night