Struggle

Struggle

Black equals struggle……

Struggle: verb

Make forceful or violent efforts to get free of restraint or constriction."before she could struggle, he lifted her up".

Our existence is supposedly a verb summed up by restraint, but when the dissenters scream injustice the justice seeks to destroy all evidence of malicious intent. A system that should lift us up before the struggle, weighs us down to indirectly incite the conflict. An inherent fear of everything that is black, my eyes that are black, are cold, my hood that is black, is bold and crime filled, your hood that is white is seen as protection, but the root of what you are protecting should come into question.

“We the people” all struggle, supposedly one, under god, but some under the rod, under the eye, watching the plantation, or the prison cell, the modern day enslavement.

My existence is summed up by a verb. Black constriction, Eric Garner, George Floyd, their efforts to free themselves of control, free themselves from the grips of the very system this country was founded on, failed. Their struggle was documented, video recorded, their struggle is the microcosm of the Black experience, of us freed of the slave ship, and forced into labor, of being “freed” from the plantation, and forced into shackles behind metal bars.

The “struggle” is the woman, who can’t pay the rent because Tim is in jail, Tim who is black, and black which means lack; lack of control, lack of power, but an abundance of fear, a mirage of money, and a cycle of poverty. To be black in the America of my days is to be expected to struggle, to expose the struggle and be told to work harder. But working harder to free from restraint gets you nothing but a knee on the neck, an elbow below the vocal cords, a rope wrapped around the source of freedom.

The “struggle” is the black men and women hanging from trees, blowing in the wind the way tires do, tires being black is the biggest irony. Tires are worn out until they are of no earthly good, and thrown out, thrown in junk yards. The black body tossed in memorials and caskets when their bodies no longer serve any earthly good, except, black bodies purpose is to be the scape goat when times spoil. Blowing in the wind the way swings do, how the black body is sat atop, an artificial hierarchy where struggle is promoted.

To be black is to “struggle”, when 49.7 percent of our homes are broken, when your systems of hate perpetuate and proliferate this rate, how else could we not. When you proclaim we embody crime, but juxtapose our violence with “peaceful protest”, like the fire in the sky burned from crosses, like the cars that ram into the voices of reason, like the Stars and Stripes that assault our existence, like the oceans of red that filled Washington D.C.

To be black in America is to “struggle”.
Our “struggle” is a war that is documented but ignored, our struggle is the bodies that fill the cemetery, our struggle is the black boys and girls, who grow up without a father. Our struggle isn’t solely on us, so when you pronounce and proclaim that black on black violence is our claim to fame, let you be reminded that our struggle caused a war, caused a battle, let you be reminded that you rallied your saddle, to fight for enslavement. Let you be reminded that our struggle was shown at the White House, a supposed Birth of a Nation, while the true birth of the nation came from the backs of enslavement. Let you be reminded that our homes, and hopes and dreams were bulldozed in the name of renewal, let you be reminded that damages were never payed, let you be reminded that these voices still live. Our struggle is your struggle, because when you march to the pearly gates, your life will be indicative of hate, my struggle is yours, because my struggle is beautiful, but your prejudice filled world, is less than flattering. My struggle is black, and so is your name, to sit there and justify entrapment, under the veil of Christ, when judgement day come, your soul pays the price, because all years of suffering you made precise, it will be you who caused the strife, they who take life, ultimately will meet their match, when our struggle is realized.

When confined to a ship, dehumanized and forced to lie amongst their own shit, surrounded by Atlantic, the blue demon that holds the bodies of the men and women who sunk to the bottom to the freedom of death, rising to the surface to breath their last breath, bondage was so abhorrent, that even death seemed liberating, because alias something they could control. Their struggle was not in their hands, what captured around their ankles was not free will, but chains and conditions that marked humans off as “property”, “fugitive”, “slave”.

When land was in sights, they saw the light, but we, we saw the spite, of the shackles that hugged our ankles, of the memories of home, because what could be more patriotic than lead to the dome, of metal stuck to bone, what is more 1776, than bodies forced to pick, even then death seemed more freeing than this. So when slaves ran away, to their masters dismay, this disobedience on property seemed slave revolt display.

What could possibly be more American than black struggle, black trouble, what is more liberating than black bodies disintegrating, prohibiting integrating, protesting immigrating, what is more red, white and blue, than pairs of cuffs that come in twos. The struggle is the distance between me and Tamir Rice, the distance between my hand, and the pen, the transparency between Til and what could’ve been. My struggle isn’t invisible, so when you tell me that slavery was hundreds of years ago I’ll remind you of the bodies flowing in the river like slit from pollution, I’ll remind you of grave injustices with no solutions, and I’ll remind you, that this flag you struggled for, is the same flag that wrapped its threads around the heads of black men and women, the same flag, that tells me that we’re separate but equal, the same flag that boasts that its lethal.

So when you stand for your pledge, I urge you to remind yourself of my struggle, our struggle, and tell me that my life is simply just defined by a verb, that my name, my logo, my skin, isn’t more than just property for labor, that my body, just like yours, is protected under the same preamble that this country was founded on. So when you say “We the People”, be clear on who “We” really means.

Copyright Micah Hill