I am tired.
I am tired of seeing people be killed just because of the color of their skin, the language that they speak, the gods that they praise, and the people that they love.
I am tired of watching mothers, daughters, sons, fathers be separated because they wanted a better life than what their country could offer them at the time.
I am tired of witnessing sacred land be turned into recreational facilities just for the benefit of your family to tan in someone else’s “exotic” backyard.
But when things are said and done the only person that holds any true power is the all-entitlement white man with his country club membership and his ability to sleep as soundly as a newborn at night.
With no fear of law enforcement coming to steal his life away, and no justice being served to her name a year later.
No fear that you may be publicly detained due to a misunderstanding because all they notice is the color of your skin and the word criminal written on your forehead in invisible ink.
No fear that you may never again see a family member going into work, as they always do, or an elder taking a leisurely stroll along the sidewalk, as they always do.
No fear that when walking home at night, as you grip your keys in between your fingers so tightly that it imprints the palm of your hands, you realize that even that much won’t protect you from the terrors of that which is man.
No fear that you may be beaten, arrested, or shooed away from the temporary home that you have made for yourself because of how much the city wishes to shun your existence no matter how much you scream “financial aid” and “affordable housing.”
No fear that you may be wrongly incarcerated for defending yourself against a racially motivated assault until it is you that is seen as the assaulter when the majority cries wolf.
Living has become a terror in itself if you are not white, cis-gendered, male, and financially stable.
Yet this is the world that we were given to work with.
So, yes, I am tired of the injustice, the cruelties, the death.
But I will never be tired of fighting for what I know in my heart and soul is right.
The impossible is possible if you are willing to put in the work and make one voice two, two voices three, and three voices into a hundred and so on.
So as we endure and keep fighting the good fight, know that what we are fighting for is only within an arm’s reach if we actively put in the work to encourage the changing of minds and the amplification of the unheard voices.
As individuals we are strong. But united, we are made stronger.