Of all the tweets, soliloquies, op-eds, pictures, and sentiments I saw last week, one stood out more than any other:

Oh the mental burden of code switching in tech. I bet that 1 brown person at the office will have to act unbothered + not be “angry” mañana.

— Bianca L. St.Louis (@beLaurie) November 25, 2014

Word. I ~~was~~ have been at my desk losing my mind. I fancy myself a relatively expert code shifter; generally Diddy bopping between complex racialized scenarios. I’m not (regrettably) new to this.

I care about bodies left in the street due to overkill and learned prejudice, so long the blood begins to dry and congeal on the pavement. I care about the historical amnesia that makes the response to Brown’s murder quickly become a myriad of excuses about black on black crime, laziness, and race-baiting, sentiments which have been remixed and repurposed to fit a variety of agendas. I care that you can get lynched publicly and the character of the perpetrator occupies more importance than the life of the slain. I care that somehow, in the words of Chris Rock:

“we treat racism in this country like it’s a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people.”

I care that long before Michael Brown, Ferguson was built for these outcomes.

Getting the sense that people think American courts have a long and distinguished history as moral arbiters. — Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) November 22, 2014

I care that a prosecutor was trying to rewrite history:

Let’s be very clear though: it’s not enough to be exemplary. That MBA won’t keep any of us safe. 401ks have never been bulletproof. Bonus checks don’t resurrect lives.You can be twice as good, three times as educated, and four times as ambitious, and still end up on a mural for moving your hands in the wrong direction. All these bullets have names, even if the officers don’t have trials.

The question now, as it has always been is this: In what (or who) do you place your faith, and how readily does it fail you? Of all things, let it not be ‘the system’.

Now, more than ever, platforms matter.

Perhaps the Most disturbing photo of 2014 pic.twitter.com/qqWjDG5ioK

— Breh McBruh (@Blak2theFuture) November 25, 2014

Janel needs to keep writing, Zim must keep traveling, Anthony needs to educate us, and Blue has to keep painting. Everyone is doing something. There’s actually no time to worry about who’s not doing what. There also isn’t time to decide what ways someone should or should not contribute. Solidarity is based on connectivity and empowerment. We are powerful beyond measure because our contributions are varied and unique: the sum total of our efforts can shift the power structure. But we need inputs from every side.

A Final Request

Please don’t be ‘respectable’. You’d be doing yourself a gigantic disservice. You’re not here to make people feel comfortable. Don’t let anyone tell you how you should feel about this. Be wary of “moving forward” as a coded response to real grief and pain. I’ve been to more funerals than I would like, and none of them have an express line. Be aware that #BlackPower was a rallying cry, and now we are collectively crying out that #BlackLivesMatter. Do not be naive enough to think that the battles don’t happen in boardrooms and on the street simultaneously. Where you preside and how you move is important. If you’re in law school right now (which inevitably means finals) don’t quit. Watch what people don’t say (like MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign and the rapid fear that interethnic organizing spurred). Don’t let people romanticize the past to the point of misrepresentation and misappropriation, so that narratives become legends instead of dialogues. Demand a new standard. Refute the rhetortic of the ‘black community’ as if it’s irreconcilably splintered. Own your story. Make a pledge. Write. Draw. Make. Teach. Give.

It’s a much easier task to dismiss people as mad for no reason, then to confront highly skilled, intelligent, organized, and righteously indignant youthful populace, with full control of their reason, and a high aptitude for using technology as a means to organize, and are still in fact, mad. Pain is communal and individual: our anguish occupies the same space as our joy. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s actually a rallying cry.

They can’t sleep on us anymore. We up. Right now.

Martin Luther King Jr. removing a burned cross from his yard with his son in 1960. pic.twitter.com/xhefsB6fvW — Old Pics Archive (@oldpicsarchive) November 18, 2014

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