Monthly Archives:: June 2020

At the age of 7, in New Orleans, I remember the police driving through the neighborhood, my grandma’s house. And even though I didn’t have a clear understanding of the history of Black people and the police, I recall that people “acted different.” From those moments and observations, I developed a fear and anxiety for...

Racism is a pandemic. But we can cure it if people in power have the commitment. I am an immigrant from Chad, Africa. I lived in Oregon for the last 21 years. Six months after living in Portland, I was pulled over by 3 police cars while leaving my job at the airport. Three police...

As a native Oregonian, growing up in “the numbers” and living in a predominately white environment, I was different. Sports gave me an outlet and an opportunity to fit in even though I was not like most of my other classmates. Like many black boys, I wanted to use sports as my way out of...

The murder of George Floyd, like every racist police killing that preceded it, hits every Black person at a deeply personal level. Every Black mother is filled with both rage at the murderers and fear for her children; and I am no exception. And yet, the anxiety and disquiet that I feel is heightened to...

At the tender age of four years old, my Mom and I were at the Portland Children’s Museum for a painting art class. The instructor directed all of the children to be sure to clean off their brushes after using each color, dipping them in water after each use and not to mix the colors...

I’ve lived in Oregon for ten years, but I’ve never felt more comfortable here than I have in the last two months. I realized recently that it’s because I’ve been in my own home, in my neighborhood, only visiting my local parks and grocery stores – the only people I encounter are people I know,...

I’ll keep it simple because I am tired, angry, beleaguered, saddened, and currently numb to empty apologies because they’re meaningless without action. There is no justification, no excuse, no reason for, nor rationale that explains away the continued state sanctioned killings of black people at the hands of authorities. I have read hundreds of texts,...

The past ten days have been pretty challenging for me. The blatant murder of another Black man, this time in broad daylight…and right in front of our faces, still sits in my mind. The video told the story in real time. The sounds of George Floyd’s voice as he cried out for humanity from the...

The recent deaths of Black people across the country is staggeringly familiar. I wonder, how many times do I have to process this? How many times do I have to feel the rise of anxiety that swells through my belly, explodes through my heart and mind, and causes me to freeze in place and silently...

I am a writer. On my bookshelves are hundreds of works celebrating, examining and dissecting blackness and the condition it imposes in this country. The second largest genre of book on my shelves are dictionaries. French, Italian, Chinuk Wawa, the Oxford English Dictionary. I care about words. And I’m ready to jettison some of them....