Hi EMU, it’s me again. Writing my annual article on racism for the Weather Vane. This is my fourth year at EMU, and the process of writing these articles hasn’t gotten any easier. Writing pointed reflections on racism as a Black person to a predominately white audience that I have to see everyday in the caf is, for me, nauseating, tear-inducing and quite literally all the things. So bear with me! 

I spent this past weekend kneeling on the pavement painting the words Black Lives Matter in front of University Commons. It was in front of University Commons, at age 11, that I was called the n-word for the first time. A man in a jacked up truck with a confederate flag flying off the back screamed it at my sister and I as we were walking to buy slurpees from 7/11. 

We didn’t get slurpees again until I could drive. 

A few years later, a graduate student did an art audit on EMU’s campus. They looked at what themes were displayed in the murals and sculptures that are installed around campus. Their results: From the quilt hanging in UC to the funky 3D image in the library, the images we choose to display on campus are full of Mennonite symbolism and of white faces. What this means is that those who aren’t white, those who aren’t Mennonite, and especially those who are neither of the two, don’t see themselves represented on our campus. 

Representation matters. Representation is   why the hearts of so many Black people shattered into a million pieces when we heard about Chadwick’s death and why I got misty-eyed when I heard a BLM mural was approved. 

I was not born into the socio-political context of the United States of America. What I mean by this is that my ancestors were never enslaved on U.S soil (though the atrocities committed by the British government in East Africa are fresh and deep). By God’s grace, the Nairobi sunshine overlooked my birth, and I got to spend ages 0-5 and 13-17 in a country where the color of my skin is not perceived as a threat and all persons share my melanin. 

When people look at me, they assume I am African-American, born into the continuous struggle of what it means to be Black in the USA, and while the struggle for liberation and against pervasive anti-Blackness is indeed a global struggle, the deeply enshrined unique American brand of institutionalized racism and legacy of enslavement is not the context I was born into, rather one I was adopted into.

This sadly, is a context that some of my white family members refuse to acknowledge, and subsequently why this summer my sister (who is also adopted from Kenya) and I made the heartbreaking decision to cut off communication with most of our otherwise wonderful extended Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonite family that has loved and prayed for us most our life. We made the conscious decision to join the descendants of those enslaved, and all other Black people in the diaspora in the fight for our collective liberation. The cost was our extended family. The day after I led the Race Matters Orientation for the entire EMU community, I told my white pastor uncle on the phone, ““what you don’t understand is that you are asking me to choose between family peace and fighting for my liberation.” In the midst of my grief and righteous anger, I was forced to attempt to explain why I refuse to agree to disagree about racism, and that to love me, truly love me is to support the movement that fights for my liberation.

At age 9, I stood in a court in Washington D.C and swore to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” because citizenship, while a privilege I don’t take for granted, is weird. Since then, being a U.S citizen has meant bearing witness to the horrific murders like those of Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castille every damn summer (and really all the months). It has meant hearing of Sandra Bland at age 15 and coming to the conscious realization that what happens to Black men can also happen to me. It’s been watching Ilhan Omar endure unceasing Islamophobia, seeing the world forget about Attiana Jefferson, knowing that Breonna Taylor’s murderers are in no way being held accountable, and sitting with the gravity of what it means for nurse Dawn Wooten to speak out. It’s been learning about the murders of Nina Pop and Toni McDade, grappling with my own privileges as a cis-het Black person, and holding myself accountable to my LBGTQ+ siblings. It has meant watching with horror the actions carried out by ICE at the border and by our military in the Middle East in the name of my safety and freedom with my tax dollars, all while our government refuses to call Kyle Rittenhouse a terrorist and tries every trick in the book to prevent Black people from voting. It’s been wondering what even is citizenship on stolen land. 

You, dear reader, might have simply posted a black square on instagram and called it a day, or perhaps you think BLM is an unnecessary divisive statement. To me “Black Lives Matter” on the University Commons pavement is a public declaration of my dignity and worth. It is a prayer, it is hope, and it is hallelujah. It is a representation of sorts. It is a statement which must be accompanied by actions and policy both within EMU and nationally. It is calling that one day we may live more fully into our values that we hold dear. 

To me, the BLM movement is a matter of life or death and it is the life or death of my loved ones. And so I’ll say with my whole chest that Black Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter. Black Joy Matters. Black Lives Matter. I hope you, whoever you are, say it too, and that you accompany those words with actions (such as voting), because as the warrior poet, Audre Lorde says, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”