Nacht des broken Herzen

               Today I am on my way home from Brooklyn, New York where I reside while attending graduate school. It's a culture shock. When I say culture shock I mean there is actually culture there. Sitting on the Amtrak next to a white woman, who I'm sure could glance a peek if she wanted, I feel an unsteadiness. Her world seems to keep turning. Her core seems engaged and she seems to be content with the world, her place in it, and what's to come in her life. Sitting next to her I realize the  likelihood of my son being buried compared to hers. They could grow up as friends. Live in the same neighborhood, and go to the same private high school, yet her son would most likely attend my sons funeral rather than vice a versa.  When I was about 7 years old I distinctly remember being adamant about BABY BORNS. If you're not an early nineties kid, baby borns were this doll that pooped, peed, and cried like a real baby. The commercials made it seem glorious. Especially appealing to a little black girl who had been engrained with the idea of motherhood since God knows when. See parents receive immortality by giving life to children. By extending their bloodline, name, traits, and raising an individual to be better, do better, become better than their predecessors. As I become older the statistics and cruel, harsh reality of the world begins to rear it's ugly head more frequently and without remorse. I've often said, I'm doing what I can. My hard work will speak for itself and will just be one step towards progress. No. On November 24 2014 I realized what was brewing in my soul like a ferocious unapologetic natural disaster: revolution.
                 Now keep in mind I'm only twenty three but my ideas, opinions, and humanity have lead me TODAY to finally start a blog I procrastinated creating since the idea became a thought. The idea of being vulnerable and showing weakness is something I've been avoiding, trying to hide for years. It's affected my acting work, relationships, and even made me questioned why and who has made me this way. Regardless of the reason, some subconscious fear has definitely held me back. In academia I have always found myself as the "other". Coming from a middle class family and having two degree holding, master recipients to call parents, has put me in classrooms where the faces are white and the seats are cushioned with inherited privilege. I've often found myself saying things such as," the slaves were free, yes, but they were economically,socially, politically, and geographically in bondage",   "how do you justify the hosing of women, and lynching of black men" to name a few. I found myself on the defense. Constantly fighting to shed light in classrooms where a voice such as mine may never have been heard. I tried to not fumigate the dialogue with sadness but with anger. Anger to mask. Anger to isolate. Anger to emotionally detach. Nights such as yesterday broke a heart I spent so long cementing.  Want to know why? I learned my life doesn't matter. My sons life can be taken. Days such as these where the weakness of the black community is exposed: our children.
                When I say children I don't limit that to just infants but to those whose lives and innocence are taken before they know the definition. Our children, who never get the chance to raise children or attempt at bettering society by contributing to its progression. I imagine sitting in the back yard watching my son play basketball enjoying his youth. Letting him go out with his friends. Praying to God he becomes more than I can even take credit for. Instead I'll be praying that he buries me. Praying that he, if he's anything like his momma, can keep a cool head in hot situations. Praying some cop, some vigilante, so bigot doesn't take matters into their own hands and make a hashtag about my son.
                 I don't know what I'm gonna do yet but something's going to be done. It has to be done. To the white woman sitting next to me, I hope our children do meet. In a land, the kind, Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of. Fought for. Died for. Cause this right here is a black mans fear and the black mothers worst nightmare.  Black lives matter. Life matters. I matter.




"See I like to think training day was a joke and Denzel didn't study real cops to get real noms or real inspiration
see this nation tends to poke its neck and set other nations straight
when we lynch our own and give a slap on the back to the pig that put the cap into black, red, and white skin.
See what's the difference between Anne frank hiding in the basement and a black mans face on the pavement because hate killed both of them.
See we as a people perish because we have a lack of knowledge. No officer it's not that I can't get out of the car it's that I don't have to. See I wonder what Jesus would do if he knew he could come down from the cross instead of saving the lost who choose to lose knowing they can live through repentance. "
                                                                          - MORGAN GREEN