Dear America, I am a black man. My eyes are wide open.

Dear America,..I am a black man. I can assure you that My blackness is not, and does not make me a threat to you. I don’t need to be destroyed or irradiated or brutalized..or executed in the streets. Im hurting. I need to be heard, and understood. I need to be understood that my experience is different from yours. Different Financially, Educationally, Professionally, Socially,… Systemically. What you are seeing in the streets of American cities are lifetime’s of frustrations from those differences. From slavery and segregation, and the KKK and Jim Crow, to bad water and schools, to unfair housing and financial acts designed to exclude us, to drugs and guns flooded into our communities, to the crime bills that impact homes and skew crime rate statistics, for those very same drugs and guns, to being passed up for better jobs and promotions, to random citizens and law enforcement killing us in the street. It’s just different. Frustration that..then we are asked to overcome those things and be grateful for that same society. And when we say..this thing isn’t right or doesn’t seem fair and we are paying attention…we are told..slavery has been over..pull yourself up by the bootstraps…And we do because we are resilient. And because we have the SAME hope in America..as the rest of Americans. AND despite these differences…we wouldn’t trade our blackness for ANYTHING. Because we know black is beautiful! Black culture, black music, black food, black people! Our blackness is DOPE! We just don’t want to get killed for it. I never want to be on the news begging for my mama’s help, because I am being killed. Our greatest heros are often quoted..but I remember..most of them were killed too….Dear America…I am a black man..but my blackness is not a threat to you.