Dear Black Men,
My heart mourns for the world you’ll never know or get to experience. A world that gives you a chance to learn, acknowledges your experiences with patience, love & a heart for understanding. A world allows you to live your life unapologetically as every other races does without having a target on your back from the time you are conceived.
I’ve witnessed hundreds of sad stories of lives ruined, taken, destroyed & neglected by society when it comes to black men in my 21 years of living. Hundreds is not an exaggeration or just there for wordplay. Hundreds represent the hurting fathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, classmates, boyfriends, celebrities, etc. who lives we all get to experience and enjoy for our pleasure yet don’t cherish. We experience these unique lifestyles, judge them when they are different, criticizes them when they are wrong and finally cut them out from our world by often the permanence the death for whatever reason we find valid. There is no price tag on a black man’s life and the sad part is other black, African Americans not only accept that but demonstrate it throughout their lives.
We aren’t uplifting each other, we aren’t going out of our way to educate each other, let alone create safe spaces were we can embrace our differences and work through our disagreements. We are seen so quickly resulting to violence and negativity towards each other when the world is going to give that to us anyways. Me writing this isn’t going to change things, bring back our black men we lost or likely even change the spirits of those mentally lost who are still physically here and that is what saddens me more. I pray one day you all began to cherish your worth not only for each other, but yourself.
– Sierra Norwood