4 minute read
SCARED TO HAVE BROWN BODIES
by Deiona Monroe
It’s scary times. The United States is looking at one of the most shocking times throughout its history.
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We’ve broken records in job loss and unemployment filing; domestic abuse reports have skyrocketed; businesses are shutting their doors forever, because of a virus. However, the statistics that creep me out the most are the ones tied to the number of brown bodies that have been laid to rest. The extent to which brown bodies have been being killed these past few months is...I honestly don’t even have a word for it. It’s, literally, impossible to accurately describe how it feels to fear for your life on a daily basis because of the pigmentation of your skin. It’s impossible to give a definition to the chills that come up when walking past a cop car while Black.
Even if I were able to describe that feeling, if you don’t look like me, you couldn’t begin to relate and barely understand. With the times that we’re in, you would think that color wouldn’t be a factor. You would think the messages being spread throughout the country of “everyone surviving together” referred to everyone living in this country, and talked about the survival of everyone. When people are at their lowest, trying their hardest to maintain their sanity and keep themselves and their loved ones safe, you would think that “everyone surviving together” would mean something beyond just the survival of white people.
Brown Bodies aren’t “everyone.”
Though there is already a virus for us to be weary of; during a time where there is barely anyone outside, people are still finding ways to bury brown bodies. People are still going out of their way to hunt brown bodies. People are still arresting and killing brown bodies for being brown bodies. People are still mimicking brown bodies but the real brown bodies are being eliminated.
Though we bleed the same, there’s something about brown body blood that excites and terrifies people. With so much brown body blood being shed— especially these last few months—it seems as though the shedding is more of a sport than a coincidence. We have brown bodies being killed for:
Though common things that 100% of the world’s population typically goes through, brown bodies are excluded from living as the rest of the world does. Brown bodies are depicted as dangerous, incapable of living out their lives not in fear unless a white body simulates the brown body. A brown body cannot seek a life of normality, safety or peace, simply because it is a brown body.
The brown body is met with much resistance.
It’s not enough to want to kill brown bodies, but for the ones who survive, they will be pushed back more as they fight to be allowed forward. It’s not enough to laugh as we hang from trees, but for someone to go out of their way to ruin a brown body just for being a brown body is beyond me. Brown bodies have to just ignore being terrorized and falsely accused by people who openly know that the system will always be on their side. The country has willingly allowed these people to know and practice violence and hate against brown bodies as if it’s a fucking sport.
Saying that they are about to call 911 is a threat against the life of a brown body; overlooking a qualified candidate for a job because their name sounds like it belongs to a brown body should be considered a hate crime. No matter how good, educated or well-mannered a brown body may be, the push back on the brown bodies’ success is astronomical. How could people spend years ensuring that brown bodies remained as far behind as possible? Doesn’t unnecessary hate get boring? Doesn’t all that force and manipulation to create the resistance get tiring? Is it not overwhelming to keep trying to hold back a people that have proven to overcome resistance for hundreds of years? To see the different levels that these people will go to—as I said before—it really has to be a damn sport.
But, the brown body brings hope.
As previously stated: brown bodies are a people that have proven to overcome resistance for hundreds of years.
Though the increasing amount of brown body blood is alarming, there is something about the perseverance of the brown body that brings me some sort of peace. It’s something about seeing a mother who lost her son in a hate crime attack, turn something so painful into something so powerful that makes me smile. The masterpieces that brown bodies create from the ashes that the world has left them in are creations that are godly and unfathomable—you can only begin to understand it if you live while in a brown body.
The brown body cries, but it fights;
It bleeds, but it heals;
There are permanent scars, but the wounds been completely shut the wounds have
For every brown body that is dropped, the rest get louder and stronger. Though times have gotten scarier, brown bodies are very familiar with scary times, but this time the brown body is taking charge of writing its history. This time, when the blood is spilled, the rejection is sent out, the denial is processed, the brown body doesn’t sit back silently—it speaks and it grabs hold to what’s rightfully theirs. It is attacked, but the brown body is now fighting back in this war.
Yes, it is scary to be in a brown body, but it’s history has proven that, again, it shall rise.
Submitted via heycoffeebreak.com
