Originally posted on Facebook on Sunday, April 24, 2022.

Being black, in my experience, is to be incessantly asked the question, "Do you belong here?" Unless of course you're in prison, in poverty or a position of subordination.

It's a question that makes my soul tired.

Even some of those who purport to be allies or to "help" readily relegate blacks to the lower rungs in their world or to the head of diversity.

It all swells in me a near infinite anger, one that would not be exhausted even if I were to kill everyone and raze everything to the ground.

This is yet another way I know there is a God to keep such a consuming fire in check. More than that, to also give me compassion for those by whom the offense comes -the perpetrators of my pain, because the enemy is not flesh and blood but sin that enslaves. I was once a slave.

My vision for my people are to have spaces (distinct from being in spaces) where our belonging is never a question but a necessity.

Let it start here and with me. Black people, I need you and don't want a world without you in every part of it.