Our country has historically been unable to come to terms with the evils of slavery and what impact it has on the people of the society
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As a longtime advocate for human rights since the 1960’s, I believe in the value of all people’s lives and the value of their individual voices. I also have a non-profit called Sacred Voices, honoring the sacredness or value of each individual voice within the human choir. As a black, gay father, and a male feminist, my voice has not always been honored. Yet still, it is my purpose to honor all voices on this planet, without marginalizing any one sector of our society. Still there are times when each individual sector of our society needs focused attention on their particular sector and the problematics of that particular sector, as in women’s rights, gay rights, and civil rights which includes the Black Lives Matter movement, all being human rights.
Our country has historically been unable to come to terms with the evils of slavery and what impact it has on the people of the society. Black Lives Matter was birthed because a need to draw attentions to the problematic and the on-going killings of black people in American within these modern times. As a black man in America, I have watched and experienced the racism of our country and it has been shameful and painful to see its institutionalization. Just this morning I was listening to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and sadly the issues being sung about are still relevant today, a song written over 50 years ago. A line from the song states “…those trigger happy polices.”
To hear people speak against the Black Lives Matter movement by shouting “All Lives Matter” is like going to a Breast Cancer fundraiser and yelling “All Lives Matter” in protest.
I sometimes see the fear in the children’s eyes as I walk down the street, but I will not allow the feelings of less than to affect my personal worth nor will I allow their lack of knowing me to affect my knowledge of myself.
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I am protesting the fact my life and my fellow people of color are treated many times like second class citizens and our lives seem to have little value to too many people, within historical and modern times. Whenever I feel safe within my community and think and live within my sense of one love and universal mind, the truth of exclusion shows its face as I sit within the co-op gallery I am a part of. I almost feel I have to calm them as they walk in after they have given me the look of “How did you get in here?” It does not happen all the time, but when it does I figure it must be my long dreads and my black face. Then I think, why should I have to apologize for me being a well-dressed, well mannered, sustainable artist? I sometimes see the fear in the children’s eyes as I walk down the street, but I will not allow the feelings of less than to affect my personal worth nor will I allow their lack of knowing me to affect my knowledge of myself.
I am a community worker, a father, a brother, an artist, a singer, a writer and poet—a giver of love. I walk in the steps of my grandfather who built churches and taught a cappella gospel music. I grew up caring for the sick, to later work in an equal opportunity program teaching low income students the value of critical thinking and learning, also exposed to a larger perspective of life, how to make the system of education to benefit them. I fought for human rights of all people from San Francisco to L.A.
Well my life matters and it is a black life.
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Photo: Pixabay