Open Letter to …
Dear Society,
Our relationship, whether you realize it or not, is complicated. I despise you for what you allow, for the standards that you set that I am urged to accept as the status quo. Standards like a young black man and woman being shot in their car for having the unfortunate burden of being black, which meant, to you, their lives were not of value - that they were loose ends that needed to be tied. I use the word unfortunate, not because I take issue with being black or because there is an inherent issue with being black, but because that is the way you perceive things. You see our skin and equate it with fear and that fear enables you, nay, empowers you to pull out your gun and mutilate. Not to yield so that a life may be preserved in the event that you are wrong. But you are shooting until that life ceases and supplanting lies when you learn that life was innocent. That’s the difference between you and us. Your fear inspires, creates, and perpetuates violence. Ours merely creates distance with the understanding that you do not have our best interests at heart. Because getting too close causes the same outcome. It places us right in the purview of your fear and is the last place we ought to be.
Returning to the complication in our relationship: As much as I am frustrated and perpetually saddened by the conditions you have set, I must thank you because you have given me a purpose. Before I set my eyes on you and learned that you were against me, my success, and quite literally, my life, I had no purpose or impetus for writing other than the fact that I could. Somewhere between Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland, I decided that my writing could no longer be for art’s sake. It would have to be for yours so you know we are not on the same side and that you may have the masses living without questioning the havoc you continue to wreak, but not me. Despite your best efforts, I am still standing. We are still standing. You keep trying to bury us and your efforts remain futile because we are seeds. You are merely putting us in a position to grow, to soar past the confines of what your feeble mind deems us capable of.
But you have a chance. We are giving you a golden opportunity to redeem yourself. To turn the tide and relinquish your status as discriminatory and oppressive for justice, for once, to be served. Her name is Stephanie Washington and his name is Paul Witherspoon and though they live, which is by the grace of God, and not by any grace exhibited by you, they are in need of something and that is justice - for their innocence and your fear. Forget the status quo and the way things are and instead focus on the way things should be and what you can do to get us there.
Sincerely,
Your Greatest Adversary
