There are black people in the future

Dear Black People 

I wanted to write a love letter. A love letter to black people. I wanted to tell black children how sorry I am that they are still fighting the war which began centuries ago: they are repeating the pleas of their ancestors. I have been struggling to write for two months since the lockdown began in March. It’s not that I can’t find the words to write a love letter but words seem so trite when black people need more than a balm that is words. 

It’s terrifying to live in a world that values the economy above humanity. It’s bewildering to live in a time where the “best lack all conviction, while the worst /are full of passionate intensity.” More than once I have echoed my mother “Hayi makugwetywe!” to express bewilderment which can only be resolved by the world coming to an end. I have spoken myself off the edge of futility because I am curious. I still wake up every morning with a sense of what could happen today: will I feel less dread? How much tea can I drink to melt the lump in my throat and soothe the pain in my chest?

I don’t know how I will recover from the knowledge and the experience of living through a global pandemic and white supremacy. I used to use work as a way to cope with my own heaviness. Work has become insufficient because at the core of white supremacy and global inequality is people like me hustling to prove their worth in order to survive. 

Survival! What a damned existence. And yet here I am still hoping to live to tell the tale. 

“There are black people in the future”: a statement of hope or a declaration of further violence on black people?

I saw two army trucks roving through a community the other day. A community of black people. Where I live (which is not a community of people but rather a community of buildings) there’s been no army surveillance. Army trucks pass through on their way to the army base which is located nearby. Passing through is not the same as meandering through to remind black people that they ought to be controlled. 

It feels better when I don’t pay too much attention to the world. When I don’t watch the news. When I don’t see a video of what is happening in Trump's America. I want to know what is happening in India but I am too afraid of what I will find. I want to know what is happening in Brazil but I am too afraid of what I will find. It is easier not to know the lengths and breadth of how banal we can be in our inhumanity. 

So instead I find peace through the sound of the sea. I find joy in the nourishing food I eat. I find laughter in the shows that I watch. I am thrilled by the connection with friends. I find comfort in a cup of tea. I find security in the rhythm of my breathing. I find myself in the small moments of the everyday. 

Image: I took this picture last year while walking out of The Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York.