Author: Confluence

Reading Time: 6 minutesLike what I can only presume was the vast majority of black America, I spent a significant portion of the past weekend either watching the dream hampton produced/directed Lifetime docuseries, Surviving R. Kelly or talking about it. The discussions dominated social media and actual face-to-face interactions with people. Nothing in recent memory did such a thorough job, or had the space to lay out such a bulletproof case as to why one Robert Sylvester Kelly ain’t shit. 

Reading Time: 5 minutesDue to a combination of changed demographics and improved economic conditions, the era of large-scale illegal migration by Mexicans to the U.S. – the reason cited for building a wall – is over. Today, in a phenomenon that began in the past five years, most of the people apprehended at the border are from Central America and reflect primarily the violent conditions in those countries.

Reading Time: 4 minutesI’ve seen firsthand the impact hate speech, under the guise of free speech, can have. As a child in Nazi Germany, I saw young boys and girls being indoctrinated into becoming mass murderers of their neighbors. Later I learned how grown men, destroyed by fear, were rendered incapable of protecting their loved ones. I learned that a crowd could be moved to heinous actions.

Reading Time: 4 minutesOur largest institutions and practices – military, sports and prisons – ask black people like me to conform to how white supremacist culture believes we should show up in the world. This expression of systemic racism says I am acceptable only if I conform and behave and look like a white person.

That is not equality. That is not equity. That is not inclusion. That is death. You ask me to die to myself so I can live like you.

We are on a cusp of a new year. What are you going to do differently to make sure you are not a part of systems that say people like me must conform to the ways of people like you so I can fit in for people like you?