I Can’t Understand America

 I Can’t Understand America

July 23, 2024

Pictured: Sonya Massey on the left, wearing a white tee, and a necklace. She is looking off to the right of the photo, with red eyeshadow, a high-bun atop her head, wearing small studs, a silver necklace and a cheek piercing. Kamala Harris on the right, wearing a black suit jacket and a black pearl necklace. She is looking off to the left of the photo with her hair down to her shoulders.

    I’ve been scrolling through Twitter on-and-off all day. I mean, how can you not? This is one of the most tumultuous presidential races we’ve had in American history. An attempted assassination of a former president. A stubborn current 86 year old president only now just pressured into stepping down due to his failing faculties. And now not even 48 hours later, Democrats are ready to make the vice president the first woman to win the presidency.

    

    It was a matter of moments—quite literally—that Vice President Harris raised nearly $81 million in campaign donations. Over 40,000 Black women from all over the country joined in on a Zoom call to rally resources behind their new candidate. My feed has been inundated with videos of Vance Jones crying on CNN, right-wing reactionaries, and fell-out-of-a-coconut tree memes over and over again. 

   

    And there, through it all, I saw Sonya Massey’s face.

    Not just her face. Her execution. 

    Sonya went to church. She was retired. Sonya had mental health issues and was seeking treatment. She loved doing hair and spending time with family. Sonya had a son, Malachi. A daughter, Jeanette. Three sisters. A mother and father. Aunts and uncles. Nieces and nephews. Cousins. She was their world. She was 36.

    Sonya Massey was 36 years old when she was shot in the face by Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson, a 30 year old white man who had worked for six different departments over four years, holding 2 DUI convictions under his name. Sonya called the police for help, suspicious that someone was on the prowl for her. Not unlikely given there were broken windows in the SUV parked in her driveway upon police arrival. She was in a robe and pajamas in her home when she answered the door and allowed the police to enter. She told them not to hurt her. She was searching for documents in her living room while the police asked questions. The pot of boiling water was still hot on the stove. The police noticed and told her to put it out, joking about the risk of a fire.

    Sonya picked it up, motioning the boiling water towards Grayson. He assumed she would throw it at him. He threatened to shoot. And Sonya, fearing for her life, placed the pot back on the stove, apologizing with her hands up. Her voice was shaking. She ducked. Upon standing back up, Grayson shot her in the face. His partner saw that she was alive still and went to get aid from his car. Grayson, still pointing his gun, stopped him, saying “You can go get it, but that’s a headshot. There’s nothing you can do, man. What else do we do? I’m not taking hot **** water to the *** face.”

Pictured: Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson’s mugshot photos. One shot he is standing facing the camera, the second to his right. He stands wearing a white shirt with the word “avenue” sitting on his left peck. He has a his hair cut short to his scalp save for the front of his head, where a blond tuft of hair sits on his forehead. He stands behind his ID Number  139977 and date 07-17-24 on a gray digital board.

    So here we are. In a country where we rely on a Black woman to save us from totalitarianism and unmitigated fascism. A country where those same Black women are being gunned down in their homes. And I’m sure you know that it’s been hard trying to parse through it all: how to deal with this present moment where Black women are simultaneously executed and expected to lead us to salvation. We hope in a future where Black women are at the helm, and at the same time snuff their life over hot water. And although I work with half-truths, and quarter-data, and eighth-theories—despite all the uncertainty I have for this country—one thing remains true:

    Black women will continue to pay for it.

    I know it to be true to my soul. I keep asking myself if America is truly ready for a Black woman to lead. And though dangerous optimism has been the drive of what I do, I can’t help but be pragmatic. They are going to blame every bad thing on Black women. They’re going to hate us for being in the highest office in the land and make us suffer for it. Imperialism won’t end. Capitalism won’t. America’s culpability in global instability will not end. And I already don’t have the hots for Kamala either (and no, it is not because she’s an AKA, it’s because she’s a zionist).

    But I refuse to wallow. I refuse to belly-up and accept doom. To bend to nihilism. To kneel to pessimism. I said I was going to be pragmatic. Like Saul D. Alinsky, one of the most important organizer in the 20th century. To the question of why we continue despite all we know to be true, he writes:

    “Because life is there ahead of you and either one tests oneself in its challenges or huddles in the valleys in a dreamless day-to-day existence whose only purpose is the preservation of an illusory security and safety…It is pushing the boulder up an endless mountain, but, unlike Sisyphus, we are always going further upward.” (Alinsky, Rules for Radicals)

Pictured: Saul D. Alinksy, standing on the side of a building holding a lit cigarette in his right hand in 1966. He wears a coat, a suit & tie, and a fedora with circular glasses. He holds a book under his right shoulder. He is standing the Chicago street in front of a few business signs reading “Michael’s Tap Room” and “Zelra Lounge Liquors" 

…

    It’s you and me. It’s you and me recognizing our power. Because our power is a fundamental truth. It’s you and me scared and doing it anyway. Knowing good and well we’ll probably never see the end. 

    

    It’s you and me keeping politicians accountable—yes, actually call and email and write letters and confront them in public and attend their meetings—because we know they have to work for us. It’s you and me reading, thirsting to know because we depend on it. It’s you and me committing to our communities, helping where we can, and leading with love and grace.

    I tweeted this the other day: "I wish people knew they have so much more power than they let on.” We have it. And when we get caught in the disillusions, the excuses, and the apathy, we make it more and more impossible to realize the world—with all its freedoms, its dignity, its love—that we want. We can fundamentally change our world if we feel it in our hearts. If we see and know and use our power. We can and we have to, because I know one more thing to be absolutely true:

    We will not survive if we don’t.