An African/Black woman conversing with herself.
By Albina
A twenty-dollar bill, not twenty million dollars, brought racism, racial ideology, structural racism, history of oppression, bigotry, poverty, ignorance, capitalism to a point of intersection that took away a life.
This is a conversation that I, an African Black woman has with herself, the mother of black children, the sister, the daughter, the wife, the grandmother, the partner, the friend.
A conversation telling her and her people, not to give up on hope, even though it may seem that ignorance, bigotry, and racism has taken hold over some people’s minds. An ideology that has taught them how to hate, bully, murder, steal, rape for their own gain. It has taught them how to tell lies, how to fabricate lies to sound like truth.
An ideology that has taught them how to hide behind excuses and the blaming of others. It has taught them to hate the colour of my skin, giving me names and stereo types like nigger, ape, half man half ape, lazy, thief, dirty, inferior. And said it is ok to discriminate.
You all know it! These lies of hate, of division that have been used before to try and exterminate, kill, and wipe out a group of people. This is not a hundred-year-old yet. This way of thinking has taught many to hate, control and exploit nature; to ignore the screams of suffocating whales, marine life in oil spills and plastic, to ignore the screams of burning wildlife in forest fires, to ignore the cries of orphan baby elephants and rhinos, whose mothers were shot by a game hunters bullet for sport, this list is long.
“Strength comes from aggression and violence!” it proclaims; anything less is weakness!
"It is ok to kill, maim, rape, and destroy", it shouts. "I am not harming my own!" it proclaims, "I am protecting, purifying, empowering them instead."
This structure of racial hierarchy, capitalism and its institutions has lied for centuries!
And people are waking up to the truth, they are seeing the lies, the half-truths, the injustices. And realising that life is fragile. The world is fragile.
And are now coming out to stand in solidarity, becoming part of the solution.
To say, we see your lies.
Life is life.
Freedom! Equality and justice for all!
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others did not just represent black bodies.
They represented the Universe and everything in it.
From their hair, to the colour of their skin.
They represented the universe. the world.
They represented connection.
Martyrs in 21st Century modern day lynching.
The world felt pain,
the pain of a mother watching the killing of her child, the child that she once cuddled and protected. (For a twenty-dollar bill).
The heart break of a partner watching the killing of a loved one,
the confusion and bewilderment of a child watching the killing of a parent.
Who is going to hold, comfort and hug this child in the dark night?
Who is going assure this child that everything is going to be alright?
This is what bigotry, hatred and ignorance has done.
Because of a twenty-dollar bill.
It has taken a life that mattered.
Enough is Enough!
The Universe matters, and the universe is in George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, the environment, you, me, water, forest, nature, air. #say her name.
All Life!
Life is precious, the universe is precious.
Enough is enough!
Black Lives Matter -mielenilmaus kokosi Turun tuomiokirkon edustalle satoja ihmisiä