In dealing with lifetimes shocked by physical, mental and sexual abuse, it is essential to adopt the sacred, human mantra which extolls:
“This abuse does not happen to me because I am a good or bad person”.
Abuse happens around us every day and does not target those who do, or do not, deserve it.
Whether random or specific in its barbarous application, the abuse reflects the broken soul of the abuser, who is desperate for self-worth through silencing others.
Our focus as survivors will be upon, how do I treat myself with dignity today?
I will ask for help when I need it, and even when others are not there for me, I will care for myself.
If we do not adopt this fundamental daily regimen, and diligently teach our children to do the same, we can not begin the healing process that humanity deserves.
Black and Brown citizens are exercising their existential responsibility to ask for help and care for themselves, through their multi-layered human geology of historical trauma.
If we as a nation impede rather than facilitate their courageous daily steps toward self-healing, we de-humanize ourselves and our individual legacies.
I grew up in a region, the Deep American South, which tacitly instructs that segregation and mistreatment are doled out to segments of society which are born inferior.
This rationalization, designed to justify our communal choice to profit from injustice, is and always has been, a well-tended lie.
It empowers us as abusers to look away.
It is the lie we were spoon-fed with a silver spoon in the South of my childhood.
Today is no different.
We are steeped in systemic abuse and remain equally culpable today, whether we have actively perpetrated the abuse, or only enabled it by standing by and doing nothing.
We cannot escape our responsibility and accountability in this healing revolution.
People of color have endured the unimaginable and somehow stand firm to make America thrive and shine on the back of their spiritual resilience.
Moving forward, it must be upon all of our backs to rebuild our society through our redemptive commitment to become more fully human.
We must relinquish the illusion that we are superior only when we dominate others.
We Americans can admit to our brokenness and leave our cultural addiction to abuse behind us.
Our escape route is a daily practice of self-awareness and self-care which moves our multicolored nation incrementally toward genuine dignity.
Anything else is delusion and folly.