It became cliché and even I began saying, “I don’t want to become a product of my environment… I don’t want to become just another statistic.” I perpetuated the deficit narrative as a form of dysfunctional consensus, not agreement. I always disagreed with the destructive narrative but as a young person, I did not feel confident enough to cordially interrogate the offensive messages or the negligent messengers. Sometimes when young people ask relevant and bold questions, adults perceive the inquiry as disrespectful, more so coming from a black female youth.
When will we demonstrate actionable stances to eliminate the rampant indoctrination and miseducation, community disorientation, and mass incarceration?
Talking about race will contribute to building our capacity to not only acknowledge delicate and complex issues, while working together to plan and implement promising solutions, but to ultimately ripen our journeys to embrace healing.
Do we apply what may prove as normal for one individual or group of people as normal, although each model of normal is vastly different? Is normal predictable or expected? Are we to default to a normal state with conformation and submission? Is normal a state of mind, frame of reality, mode of oppression, or all of the above?
