I’m not sure what to say or what to feel. i feel as if my life is on pause. as if my heart went from beating with passion to pounding with halts of rage. this is not my america. this country does not bleed red, white, and blue for me. never did, never will. my people & my allies are angry, enraged. enraged that the promise that was told to us was not kept. this is not the land of free. black people have fought for a country they can’t even enjoy.
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as i screamed hands up don’t shoot, thoughts fluttered my head. i promised my mom I’d be back home that night but the deep stare into the blue eyed man who had the tool to rip through my flesh, i didn’t know if that promised was going to be kept. my hands were up, eyes wide opened, praying to not be the next victim. i made it out alive, i am a lucky one. my cousin said the same thing 9 years ago, he was not lucky. the trauma that rushes through my head every time i hear sirens haunts me. am i next? i asked myself every time i decided to cry out, to agitate. this sad reality of the black experience, MY experience, i hope makes you uncomfortable.
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what will it take you to believe me? see my pain? to acknowledge my existence? my lack of existence? will it take for ME, the person you love to be 6 shoots deep, 6 feet under, for you to feel OUR pain? don’t tell me how to feel, how to grieve, how to protest. It wasn’t speeches that turned the tide for civil rights. It was the anarchists. those willing to provoke the police and get sprayed by hoses, anything to cause a scene and make the press.
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if i die at the hands of the white man, let it be because i fought, not because I couldn’t.

-Marcus Alston