You come into this world and she holds you for the very first time- a moment she has been waiting for her entire life, tears and sweat streaming down her tired face. She takes one look at your fragile body- more important than the sun as it gleams beneath the hospital lights, and you become the center of her universe. You are her greatest triumph, the victory she has been preparing for all her life. From the moment your cries pierce the air, you become her purpose, her air supply, her reason for being in a world that is constantly telling her not to be. But she isn’t worried about the world today. She will never again think about anything as intently as she thinks about you. She plants a soft kiss on the damp crown of your newborn curls; a kiss echoed by God, who made you Black because He found you beautiful.

Her hands still shaking from her brush with death, she wraps you in a blanket that made her heart sing when she chose it, gently tucking your squirming hands and feet into the safe shelter of a mother’s love. But the day you leave her womb is the last time you will ever know safety.

You grow up, carrying the inheritance of transatlantic genocide and the genetic memory of lynchings and separations as you move through a world that pretends it can tolerate you, but the sight of your skin- darker than original sin in their eyes- fills them with the same rage the devil felt when he looked at the earthen body of Adam and refused to bow.

You move through life with the weight of those knife-like eyes pressing their blades against you. You don’t understand why they stare, but you learn to stare back with a warrior’s defiance. Your courage only makes them angrier. They don’t understand why you refuse to hate you they way they hate you. They build a world where all the rules are set against you and pretend to be shocked when you don’t win as easily as they do. But when you do win, their fury knows no bounds.

I wanted to write you a beautiful story. One that ends with a white picket fence and the fulfillment of the dreams your mother saw as she carried you in the safe haven of her body for nine months. But your story doesn’t end like that. You were a playful, curious boy full of laughter and vivaciousness, but they shot you dead at age 12 as you played in the park. You loved princesses and the color pink, but they set your blanket on fire and shot you dead at age 7 as you slept on your grandmother’s couch. You lived a good life, until they chased you for four minutes as your daily jog turned into a losing race against their outstretched guns. You tried your best to stay resilient through the ups and downs of life, until the moment his knee pressed against your neck. You begged for air, but he silenced your cries by pressing harder as he felt the life leave your body- the body that was once more important than the sun.

The body once wrapped in a carefully chosen blanket is now wrapped in a black body bag. Black like your skin, because black was your sin, for your first mistake was to be born into a world that couldn’t forgive the color that it found you in. When your mama held you, did she tell you the rules? Don’t play, don’t speak, don’t move, don’t run, don’t eat candy, don’t carry candy, don’t look, don’t live, don’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe.

The proclamation they worship declared that your body was free, but they traded the slavemaster’s whips for guns and a broken system designed to hold you in place better than chains ever could. They become outraged when you kneel, but the outrage leaves them the instant your soul leaves your body, and only returns when they object to smashed storefronts with greater anger than the sight of your smashed windpipe.

What words in all the languages of man could convey how cruel this world has been to you, how cruelly my own people have been an accessory to your alienation and pain? What apology can I give to you, my beloved brothers and sisters? All I can do is pledge to stand with you and keep your memory alive in these words: Black Lives Matter.

x r