#ABetterYouIsABetterMe

           I wanted to share something, but struggled to do so because it may not translate well...      Nevertheless, I do so anyway. This anklet in this picture has literally been around my left ankle for 20 straight (never removed) years—bought it in 2000 from a beautiful Pakistani brother that I became fond of and him of me. He asked questions out of curiosity and genuine interest. So I shared things concerning African-American culture with him and he with me about Pakistani culture. I supported his business regularly in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania where I lived at that time. When I opened up my bookstore in Upper Darby he visited me and purchased several books from me... a bookstore that was extremely short-lived because the locals hated that it (I) was there. But I won’t elaborate on that.      So on last evening as I slept somehow my foot got caught in the anklet, and half asleep I aggressively pulled it away and bro...

           While it may not sound graceful; I have been known to reference “traveling through a woman’s womb.” It is literally a God-idea therefore deemed sacred. Hence the Holy implantation of Jesus via Mary’s womb. A privilege and purpose reserved for a woman—adding “Mother” to her credentials which supersedes any Phd, MD, MEd, etc.         That said, I have made a couple of references to George Floyd’s momma in present-tense, and have been “corrected.” However, I know his momma has gone from THIS life—I know that. However, her son called on her in his final hours as though alive...and that’s my point. And like I said to the person I was speaking with... I believe he saw her. I believe he wasn’t calling on a deceased mother, but one that was very present with him as his life was leaving him. Because as a motherless daughter, I know, a mother can physically depart this this earth, but she never leaves that place in a child’s...

Maybe no one else wants to say this, but I will... that officer intentionally, deliberately... used his knee to kill Big Floyd as a symbolic rebuke of Colin Kaepernick’s symbol of protest of “taking a knee.” This was his symbolic and visual intent while murdering a Black man. It wasn’t irony or coincidence — it was intentional.

    As her sons, brothers, fathers are victims of police brutality and/or other forms of genocide—what happens to a mother that has to see and hear audible footage of her son being brutally murdered in the street, and hearing him helplessly calling for his momma? What happens to her soul as it’s taunted by the haunting sound of his cries? She dies. Little by by little it eats away at her soul... bit by bit, she withers. Is it an unintended consequence or part of the strategy? Am I overthinking... creating a conspiracy?  I am a mother and I have a mother’s heart, so I feel what this does. With stealth it kills a a Black woman every time they kill one of her Black men. Every, mother, sister, wife, auntie dies a slow death as a piece of her soul is severed. And every time it happens “again” Travon’s, Eric’s, Ahmaud’s, Philando’s, Nolan’s mothers have to relive their tragedy “again.” And not to overlook daughters lost to this plight—Sandra, Breonna, MyKayla... so many names t...