It’s Hard To Be Both American and Black

<p>T<strong>here&rsquo;s an essay in my drafts folder that&rsquo;s eight years old.&nbsp;</strong>Currently, it&rsquo;s about an 11-min read with one page of citations. It&rsquo;s one of the pieces I return to, every few months or so, to jot down a few observations. Stray thoughts.</p> <p>When I started it, I told myself I wouldn&rsquo;t publish it off the cuff. Couldn&rsquo;t edit it when I was angry. Or depressed.</p> <p>No, this piece would be polished. No weak spots where a person could set tenterhooks and stretch the meaning until the flesh tore.</p> <p>The only published piece I&rsquo;ve treated remotely similiarly was this 13-min personal essay.</p> <h2><a href="https://humanparts.medium.com/the-trauma-is-at-this-address-50e3d65428c7?source=post_page-----4ebf2249baaf--------------------------------" rel="noopener follow" target="_blank">The Trauma Is at This Address</a></h2> <h3><a href="https://humanparts.medium.com/the-trauma-is-at-this-address-50e3d65428c7?source=post_page-----4ebf2249baaf--------------------------------" rel="noopener follow" target="_blank">How it feels to watch your family suffer and die, over and over</a></h3> <p><a href="https://humanparts.medium.com/the-trauma-is-at-this-address-50e3d65428c7?source=post_page-----4ebf2249baaf--------------------------------" rel="noopener follow" target="_blank">humanparts.medium.com</a></p> <p>That essay stayed as a draft for almost three years for the same reasons. Not many of us like to present our bruises for further poking, prodding, and pain for no purpose, and I&rsquo;m only slightly different. I show the bruises I want to show.</p> <p>Unveiling your pain on a public forum and being told to toughen up when a knife is twisted in the barely-healing wounds is, quite frankly, useless. It doesn&rsquo;t help you. It doesn&rsquo;t help the people hurting you. It doesn&rsquo;t sew flesh-and-blood back onto bones. It doesn&rsquo;t give families their flesh-and-blood back. The wound throbs and itches.</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/counterarts/its-hard-to-be-both-american-and-black-4ebf2249baaf"><strong>Visit Now</strong></a></p>
Tags: American Black