Friday, June 19, 2015

Broken







52 years later.....

 
Clementa Pinckney, 41
Cynthia Hurd, 54
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45
Tywanza Sanders, 26
Ethel Lance, 70
Susie Jackson, 87
Middleton-Doctor, 49
Myra Thompson, 59
Daniel Simmons Sr., 74

7 comments:

webb said...

Some days I want to weep for the deviciveness in our country that leads to actions like this one.

Samantha Dugan said...

webb,
Been in the worst sort of heartache thinking about all of this. One would hope that things like this would start to open the lines of communication and then, well then you get people saying it was a hate crime that had nothing to do with color. I found myself at one point wishing they would throw that evil man in a cell with people that would rip him apart.....the very thought that all of this made me that evil, to wish agony and pain, maybe worse, on a person, evil or not, well that is what this kind of hatred and covering up begets. I was ashamed of my own, no matter how short lived and fleeting, thoughts. We are a sick nation of people that are too afraid to speak to one another and that breaks my heart just as much as anything. As the mother of a black male (yes, he is biracial but in the eyes of people that see him walking down the street he is a black male) and I am heavier for the fear I feel for his safety, from both sides of the divide. I read a piece earlier this year that I thought of as I drifted off into a fitful and restless sleep Wednesday night, it was written by a father, a white father of a son that bore the pigment of the woman he had married.....the words resonate with me still. He wrote that he hated the fact, but knew it was true, that he wished his son looked more like him, for no other reason than he would be safer. To own that feeling, to feel that pang of, I don't know, push back maybe, from your child being identified by the color of their skin, especially for this man who was madly in love with his dark skinned wife. Impossible to explain but I feel it from time to time and in times like this, more than ever. I hate that we are this way. I truly do....

Thanks for understanding lady. Nice to know you are out there.

Thomas said...

Fear and anger is at the root of hating others who are "different." Fear that someone will gain something you feel entitled to, anger when you realize you are not worth what you think you are worth. The easiest way to make yourself feel better is to blame others for your misery, and then make them pay for it.

Samantha Dugan said...

Thomas,
Nice to see you dear friend. I know why it's done, I just ache for us to be better, more caring and compassionate people. The fact that people are trying to spin this to their agenda makes my head spin and heart crumble. Profoundly sad.....

Thomas said...

Sam, when you find a way to change human nature you will certainly leave your name behind for posterity. The seed of destruction is withing the species; that's what every prophet has tried to make us understand. If you don't understand or acknowledge it, you can't make it better,

Thomas said...

within--not withing.

Samantha Dugan said...

Thomas,
I would never presume to think I could, or should leave my mark. The one tiny thing I have been able to do is touch the lives of those around me, share my son, his sweet heart and now-part-of-their-family-too face with them and make them just a little more aware, and sensitive to just how different it is to be him. That and I can keep talking which I assure you, I will.