While I have been away, I knew that I would have some things to say during Black History Month.

Turns out I have a LOT.

It’s one thing for me to ask if my peoples are good without them knowing that I am also black. It’s another thing to assume that any black folk reading this aren’t the ones being dismissive or celebrating the cruelty and bigotry that they think they are immune to.

But I do love the strength of accountability being thrown at anyone of color betraying their race, their lineage. It’s nothing new, but thankfully it is more recordable than ever.

The rest of us on the right side of history? We are doing what we can to stay informed and sane at the same time. Making sure we don’t have full faith in the mainstream media, while giving independent news sources more attention, but the same if not harder level of scrutiny.

That’s not just for us to do. That’s for everyone of every race and nationality that still has a heart for those outside of, or alternative to our lifestyles, our employment status, and especially outside of our choice of faith, if any.

And I will not be shy about the rage I have been feeling on and off since last year up until now. I have thought and implied things that would have me questioned, or even “disappeared.”

I’m not alone. Because you can only speak to anyone’s sympathy for so long before you feel other methods deserve to be explored, if not wished for.

We are entitled to that level of rage. We are allowed to feel it until we decide how to express it. Centuries of the body keeping score, genetically passed down to have the trauma repeated in the home, long enough that it becomes family doctrine that no one is allowed to break.

We are entitled to purge that trauma from our blood, our spirit, our communities of choice. But there is a fine line between feeding those in hiding, and being starved for a banana clip to empty onto the reasons they hide.

And that’s what they have wanted from the beginning. For black bodies to repeat the energy of Summer of 2020. To be treated the way our ancestors, relatives, even elder friends were, back when they also said “no more.”

But we know better. We don’t forget, ignore, or erase history.

Not all of us are designed to retain all of it, but we know enough to stand strong. To believe that joy, art, and love, is still resistance. To believe that justice can be as slow or as swift as its opponents demand it to be. To believe that this will not end with us in flames, again, but in favor for all who stand with us.

We, the people, have come too far to lose ourselves to this outright evil. Not when they know what power we hold. And especially with us knowing how deeply they fear our power.

Let’s keep showing them our power.

-Kingston Priest