Tap,
Tap,
Tap,
Tap.
Hey,
You will do well to know that you are no more free than we were.
You will do well to use the same strategies we did to survive and to be free.
I was standing at the fireplace in the living room of my home at the time.
It was morning.
I was staring at the black screen of my TV where I'd sat in disbelief only a few hours earlier.
In disbelief that 45 had just been elected as the next president of the United States.
I was standing at the fireplace in the dissociation of the coziness of my home on a crisp fall morning and the lasting,
Chilling disbelief that not only lingered but was growing colder in my spine.
Tap,
Tap,
Tap.
How had my sense of belonging and vindication and promise and hope that stabilized my life as a black American with Obama as president the past eight years vanished in moments.
Except it wasn't just moments.
It was years,
Decades,
Maybe more of work in the making to ensure just the opposite.
You will do well.
I could feel them behind me.
A long,
Clustered line of brown-skinned ancestors in earth-toned clothing stretching into historical infinity.
Some holding lanterns as beacons to light the way forward.
A way that had led to my birth.
Reality was cold this morning.
Harsh and sudden.
I was trembling.
I was trembling with the realization of their truth.
Spoken.
Settling upon me as my home.
You are no more free than we were.
You will do well to know,
To act,
To survive,
To be free.
Tap.
Expand.
It feels like contracting,
But it's really expanding.
Expanding our capacity to rise up to meet the reality of what it means to be a person in a black body.
Brown-skinned.
Easily marked for enslavement.
Segregation.
Denial of access to resources and sustainability.
And freedom to choose.
Freedom to move.
Freedom to be.
Is this what you're telling me?
I thought I was worlds away.
Come on,
At least steps away from.
.
.
From.
.
.
Tap,
Tap,
Tap.
Chilling reality still grips my spine as warm tears roll down my cheeks.
I'm sorry.
I'm really sorry.
I do not intend to sound like I think I'm better than you are.
I think I thought I was better off.
Isn't that what you fought for?
Died for?
Bled for?
Don't we wear the t-shirt,
You know,
That we're your wildest dreams?
I thought.
.
.
I thought we were making you proud.
What have I actually done?
Have I somehow turned progress into a low-key,
Disdainful,
Dissociated pride?
Somehow,
Simultaneously living on your shoulders and seeping into the myth that I'm standing on a solid ground of freedom that values my personhood beyond the color of my skin.
I'm no steps away from a bondage that seemed so long ago.
Hillary Rodham Clinton concedes.
And my hope concedes.
No,
The hell it does not.
I hear from the back of the line.
And then again from the front.
Tap,
Tap,
Tap.
Tap,
Tap,
Tap.
Tap,
Tap,
Tap.
The tapping is starting to feel like marching.
A rhythmic cadence swelling from thousands,
Millions of pairs of feet behind me.
You who are listening to me now,
Close your eyes.
Can you feel it with me?
What can you hear in your own historical catalog?
We shall not be moved.
We shall overcome.
I can't turn back now.
What can you hear above the rhythm?
Is it only humming?
Maybe even wailing?
Moans?
It's the tone and the tenor of a people.
Your people.
My people.
Our people.
Who've come before us.
Tap,
Tap,
Tap.
Get it together now.
You cannot afford despair.
We have come too far.
Much too far to let anything down now.
We got you.
You get us.
You carry within you the promise of generations.
Bring it home,
Babies.
Bring it home.
Ashe.
