Volume of Silence

The biggest lie that has been told to us is that our voices hold no power. We have been instilled with the fallacy that we individually do not have the power to affect change in the grand scheme of things and we have believed that for far too long and have been blissfully aware of the corruption, evil and greed that lives with us.

I say blissful because despite "knowing" what has been happening, we have for most our lives (particularly in school) being taught to believe that because things are better now than they have been in the past, life now isn't that bad and we have been educated to be grateful for the little changes that have been made. I remember learning about things like the Holocaust, slavery, Jim Crow, learning about the genocide of thousands upon thousand and thinking how lucky we were to not be living in that time because nothing of that sort could happen now. And lucky we are, for our ancestors bared the heaviest of burdens so we could have a today like, which makes it all the more important that now with eyes wide open we see that those same beliefs that allowed those atrocities to have happened have not changed, have not died out , even a little, like we were taught to believe. They are alive, they are thriving and they are well.

My awakening began with the death of Michael Brown, it began as I sat on the floor of my college dorm defending this boy, who I had never met before, and his right to to the life that was taken from him. It was during this "discussion" that my eyes were opened to my own blackness in a way they never had been before. I saw now, how those beliefs that had allowed for the suffering and subjugation of my people in the past, had been morphed to more acceptable social norms, because now they hid their beliefs behind laws that allowed for black bodies to be killed and trampled on.

Because now argued that because we have things, like the Civil Rights Act, equality is among us and racism and discrimination are a thing of the past. They failed, however, to address the racism, discrimination, sexism, classism, etc, that they had embedded into the country and into the governments and the systems around us. They failed to admit to the fact the systems which influenced us, educated us and drove us were that built of racism, classism, sexism, ableism, etc.

It was in with the election of Donald Trump, and then again of Boris Johnson that I saw light into how much the past reflects the future. I used to ask how something like the Holocaust or the Jim Crow era was allowed to happen, to ask why there wasn't a furious rage and outcry against these atrocities until I saw the beginnings of history repeating itself. I've seen the disgust and apathy that is held towards anybody who is "other", for the immigrants that have been placed in concentration camps and forgotten, for the black lives that have been lost because of state sanctioned violence, for the black and brown bodies stuffed into the prisons at alarming rates, for the LGBTQ community who have been denied their rights exist, for the Muslims around the world who have been punished for their religion, for the "others", who have been denied their rights to the life, liberty and happiness promised to them as humans.

I hear everyday people talk about how politics doesn't interest them as if politics are not what allows these things to happen. I hear those who voted for Trump/Boris say that they are good people, good people who just think there should be more restrictions on who get to come into their country, who think that poor people need to just pick themselves up by their bootstraps and get to it, believe that if black people just dressed differently,talked differently and acted differently then they would have nothing to fear.

It's 2020 and I'm tired of people trying to hide their disgust for minorities as anything else other than what it is. Just say you hate people of color, immigrants, Muslims, poor people, women, disabled people, LGBTQ people and keep it pushing.

It's 2020 and if you still "don't care about politics", if you're still not voting when the time arises then you are just as much of an enabler as those who vote for the likes of Trump/Boris, your silence speaks in volumes and none of what it is saying is pretty.

It's 2020 and you will no longer be able to hide under a guise of ignorance, or lack of understanding. I will no longer be explaining things to anyone. If you yourself cannot find the desire to go and learn about the issues that affect not only yourself but those around you, but your neighbors, your friends, the citizens of your country and those oceans away from you, then it is because you did not care enough to do so, because they did not matter enough for you to do so.

It's 2020 and we can no longer afford to keep thinking with the same closed off and shortsighted individualistic mindset that we have been. We cannot afford to allow things to continue this way any longer, too many lives have been lost and wars fought for us to continue to be blissfully aware. We need to get angry, we need to mobilize, we need to fight and we need to speak up.

In 2020 I am asking you to recognize the power that your voice holds, and to restore it back into your own hands. I am asking that we come together as one and we not allow ourselves or our brothers and sisters to suffer silently any longer. I am asking that we not allow history to continue to repeat itself and that we not be blinded by the lies fed to us.

In 2020 I need you to get angry, get furious, get knowledgeable. It's now time to say no and to show out. It's time we held our leaders accountable to their greed, to their cruelty and to the harm they have inflicted upon us. We cannot continue to solely rely on the governments to do that, cannot solely rely on them to make this world into a better place because that is a slow process that they have been failing.

In 2020 we are tired of this status quo, we want change and we want in NOW.