We are Tired
By: Natasha Zarinsky
Tags: Black Lives Matter, Revolution, Social Justice

We are tired. We are tired. We. Are. Tired.

Source: #BlackLivesMatter @ blacklivesmatter.com

It seems as though there is a reckoning upon us. My mind’s restlessness compels me to release some of the thoughts currently racing through me as a result, and perhaps, in releasing them, my mind can begin to address and process them. I’m unsure of my purpose in sharing them and whether they will resonate with others, but I initially jotted down a few words because I began to notice my increased frustration while trying to formulate a response to the question of how I was/am feeling.

I often feel a sense of paralysis when asked that question — not due to a lack of feeling, but rather, the complete opposite: a professedly overwhelming saturation of turbulent emotions that cannot be expressed lightly in the passing moment of that question’s posing, which one might consider perfunctory, or even harmless, but is, in and of itself, imbued with delicate minefields and rapidly fluctuating energies.

There is a natural tendency to ponder the underlying causes of such a labyrinth of emotions. I do my best in the moment to relay the totality of my opinions with as much honesty and specificity as I can muster, but forces beyond my control, and sometimes beyond my own comprehension, linger prominently just beneath the surface. What, one may wonder, might linger at once so prominently, and yet concurrently, somehow so elusively beneath said surface, as to evade simple explanation and expression?

Black people have been brutalized and dehumanized for centuries. Black people bear the burden of being other and being deemed less than from the moment they are born, and it is built into our consciousness, lives boldly on our skin, and seeps through our very bones, muscles and sinew, as the lives of generations past flex their tortured memories within us. While the world around us either pretends they cannot fathom such cruelty, or takes immense pleasure in doling it out, we rely on a resiliency born of staggering and seemingly unrelenting injustices, and an ever-present instinct to survive. Perhaps that is part of the reason why a simple response to how I am feeling can rarely ever be simple, especially when our existence is constantly under siege. And yet, we will never stop imagining and fighting for the day when this debasing violence and callous treatment of our very being will end. And it will end, because it must end, if humanity has any hope of evolving and unearthing its wondrous capacity for true metamorphosis.

I have no particular hope for these words and the words that follow, other than to add my voice to so many others trying to cut through the devastation and chaos in the world right now. They continue to evolve, even as I write this message, and real actions and solutions must follow, as I myself am still seeking to understand the best solutions and actions to take. To start, though, and to put it simply: I cannot remain silent and I will not remain silent.

We are tired. We are tired. We. Are. Tired.

We are tired of being murdered. We are tired of you murdering us without consequences. We are tired of fearing for our lives every day. We are tired of teaching our children the best ways to protect themselves from being killed by the police. We are tired of you teaching your children to fear us and hate us and feel justified in one day killing us. We are tired of explaining our humanity to you when you refuse to see that we have any.

We are tired of being told the right way to protest, because you will never acknowledge that any of our revolts are precipitated by your violence and consistent assaults on our very survival, as it would threaten your ability to devalue us. We are tired of you demanding our politeness and civility to preserve your comfort, when you disregard and even delight in our discomfort, as you disregard and delight in our deaths.

We are tired of your hypocrisy.

We are tired of our voices being ignored and silenced. We are tired of your collective knees pressing on our necks. We are tired of you pretending that this country wasn’t built on our backs. We are tired of pretending that the social contract of our civilization is upheld or implemented fairly. We are tired of you rewriting the history of colonization and white supremacy, and trying to convince us that any attempts to behave in kind in the spirit of pure self-preservation and resistance are wrong. We are tired of pretending that the delusions you tell yourselves about your superiority are real.

We are tired of you pretending that we are on equal footing. We are tired of you trying to deny our progress. We are tired of you assuming our guilt and viewing our mere existence as a threat to yours, when you are the descendants of pillagers, thieves and tyrants, and yet you are always assumed innocent, while your ancestors’ treacherous exploits continue to propel you forward and you continue to benefit from and reinforce the insidious behemoth that is systemic oppression.

We are tired because the revolution must now be televised.

We are tired of masking and dimming our greatness to protect your fragile egos. We are tired of you pretending you are not part of the problem simply because you don’t say the n-word. We are tired of you remaining silent as we suffer and writhe in pain — physically, mentally and soul-deep. We are tired of your inability to conceive of our innate right to life or liberty. We are tired of your willful ignorance and apathy. We are tired of your silence and complacency. We are tired of you not using your privilege to dismantle the systems of oppression that maintain your power within the status quo.

We. Are. Tired. We are tired. We are tired.

We are tired, but we will never give in. We are tired, but we will no longer accept your cries of ignorance to lessen your complicity or your obligation to do more and be better. We are tired, but we know that you can do more and be better and fight alongside us. We are tired, but we will never stop demanding our freedom. We are tired, but we will never stop fighting for our freedom. We are tired, but we will never be enslaved again.