The theme for Black History month this year is uplifting African Americans contributions to the arts, and it felt like a good time to re-share my poem, Liberation and Resilience (also published in the Freedom issue of Spoken Black Girl magazine). Through all the challenges, God has remained with us as a people. This poem is an honoring of this presence.

Some folks have historical amnesia. And on this day, every year, we witness King’s words taken out of context as if his work stopped with one phrase: “I Have a Dream.” King embraced anti-racism, anti-imperialism + anti-militarism. He called for a “radical REVOLUTION of values. But we know America prefers a reduction to sound bites, seeing him as a symbol of civil rights while avoiding the substance of his speeches, books (Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?) and life. Let’s tell the truth about King’s legacy, it is rooted in collective liberation.

Sharing some Christmas thoughts with you all today. May we root our faith in Christ in liberation for the collective, coming alongside those the world has discarded and see them as God sees us, with eyes of love. I mourn the silence in many church spaces as we witness, in real time, active genocide of the Palestinian people. I grieve with Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost loved ones, and still cry out for the return of their beloveds who are held hostage. And I mourn the ways some ministers urge us to “give it to God,” and do nothing here and now to raise our voices.

I come from a people displaced by European colonization who remain rooted in resilience; we are Garifuna (Garinagu), an Afro-Indigenous / Latinx community living, primarily, in Central American countries like Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua, and within the U.S. (mostly concentrated in New York city). Today, in loving memory of Dad, we celebrate Garifuna Settlement Day, which marks the arrival of Garifuna people on Belizean shores - Nov. 19, 1802.

Are we brave enough to listen? Like many of you, my mind is a mush of sorrow and anger, anxiousness and horror. Every word now feels impossibly inadequate. I keep listening to this agony because closing our ears is betrayal. Turn off the news they say. But how can one witness unprecedented violence and pain - children and families, Palestinian and Israeli - and turn away? Perhaps, God, you are calling us, in this moment, to decenter ourselves, holding compassion for the hurting without abandoning our resistance to empire. You weep with the wounded, the forsaken.

A few weeks ago, in the wake of another mass shooting - this time targeting African Americans in Jacksonville, FL - I wrote an essay here urging us to see hate as the root of the rampant violence unfolding around us. My dear friend Jenn, an intersectional activist, who consistently uses her social media platforms to educate and raise awareness on a range of issues (disability justice, LGBTQ+ rights, anti-racism, animal rights and more), wrote a POWERFUL response to these thoughts. I felt it was important to include her heartfelt and brilliant words on our website as well (and on her birthday, too!)

Hatred is here (and always has been…) - turning away from this realization will not eradicate the spread; it greets us in our social media feeds, screams from viral video clips and within comment sections, then travels into church spaces and pulpits where some ministers proclaim God’s love, but only IF you look, worship, and love like them. As we sit here, another Ryan Palmeter is being raised; hate is being nurtured in the homes of neighbors surrounding us, fed to kids with breakfast and dinner, and then hurled at anyone deemed a dangerous “other.” Are we willing to face that controlling guns will not be enough to curb violence, because those who bow at the altar of division will only seek other ways to fuel destruction?

When a Black woman dies, is injured or sexually assaulted at the hands of police, there is often deafening silence. If Black lives matter, where is the collective outcry – the mass marches, vigils and viral posts on social media for women and girls who look like me? This apathy signifies the reality of living in a society which is resigned to view us through the narrow lens of nefarious stereotypes – super women incapable of feeling pain, angry, hyper-sexualized or unfeminine. As we remember Sandra Bland today (she would have been 36 this year), we cannot forget the urgency of the #SayHerName movement started by The African American Policy Forum.

Yesterday morning, as I sat typing on my computer, rain splattering against the window, I listened in horror to an all too familiar sound in this country - another mother’s voice steeped in agony and tears, demanding justice. Her rage, exhaustion, and grief were palpable. Her son, Irvo Otieno, a 28-year-old aspiring musician, struggled with mental illness. Instead of receiving help, he encountered brutality at Henrico County jail, before being transferred to Central State Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, on March 6, where he was tortured and killed.

We sustain divisions in our society by denying they exist. Some months ago, I discovered a Christian website splattered with blog posts proclaiming any focus on racism opposes our faith. “God does not see color” they argued, and neither should we as the body of Christ. I sat in front of the computer, my mind pacing with counter questions - How could a God who doesn’t see color create the array of beautiful hues we witness daily? Why is Christianity continually lifted up as a pathway to avoid engaging with the terror racism creates, the wounds it continues to exact upon the bodies of BlPOC folk?

Daddy, those last moments with you - your tender squeezing of our hands, gentle whispers of “I love you,” as your speech slipped away, the consistent blinking of your eyes to let us know, even as you fought to breath, you were still listening. Your life an offering, a testament to the sanctuary that is love no expectations no pre-conditions no barriers between us and you. LOVE embodied… transcendent, unbound by the span of lifetimes and now this love blossoms within us, your beloveds, and the many you met with kindness, generosity, and warmth.

The Gospel is not neutral; we meet the righteous rage of Jesus flipping tables and calling out the pharisees on their hypocrisy (Matthew 21:12-13,Mark 11:15-18) as he declared:“‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.” Our actions either resist oppression or uphold it. Sitting on pews as the world erupts around us is not an act of faith, but cowardice. I hear Senator Raphael Warnock who once said “a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire.”

Their voices are focused on drowning out Christ in pursuit of their own agenda  - political power, rampant greed, and exploitation of the vulnerable and least protected. When you live on the margins, as I do (and so many others), and have long endured oppression (both individually and collectively), you recognize falsehoods which come wrapped as truth.  We continuously witness the hijacking of Christianity in the name of “Christian nationalism” - whether through the violence and attempted coup on Jan.6, Trump-backed candidates and judges bent on tearing down gains in civil rights…

It’s not enough to react to crisis after crisis, we have to constantly organize to push for the world we envision. And this kind of ongoing organization requires understanding exactly what we are working towards. For this reason, we didn’t march, we stood in one place and heard the demands being raised about everything from the climate crisis to voting rights, racial violence and systemic racism, economic inequality (there are 140 million poor and low wealth people in the U.S. today), etc.

As the busy Mama, it's tough to hit the bathroom solo, let alone go on an outing! Y'all, the struggle is real! So when Mom and Dad asked me to dinner on a Friday night, and said my brother would join us, I raced past my husband and grabbed the car keys. Since there were only a few hours left before Nai's bedtime, we headed to a nearby restaurant, Clark Burger.

For months I drove past wistfully thinking of sitting under those colorful umbrellas, enjoying a much needed break, eating slowly, enveloped by city sounds - now, we were here.

The world is erupting – climate change, institutionalized racism, economic inequality, the destructive ideology of white supremacy which is rapidly rolling back gains of civil rights advocates in multiple spheres. Folks of faith can no longer pray passively, hoping things improve, while sticking our heads down in bibles and looking away because it’s uncomfortable. Prayer demands an active partnership with God to birth change.