#longlivewanza

Each year, on March 15th, nothing appears to change but the day and the time. Yet, I have always believed that far beyond what my eyes can see and what my hands can touch, something awaits me. Once the clock strikes 12:00 am, I edge a little closer to a lesson or message previously inaccessible. 

For the past few months and as early as the start of 2015, Alice Walker’s Meridian has been on my mind. More specifically the character whom the book is named after, has been a point of reflection. Lately I see so much of myself in her. Perhaps most unique about Meridian Hill’s character is her inheritance of a unique illness that occasionally causes her to faint and lose consciousness. At times she is unresponsive for days, and in other moments, months. As an activist within the radical Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960s, Meridian’s witnessing of and experiences with oppressive forces always seems to trigger the collapse and paralysis of her body.

Like Meridian I’ve encountered a few “Wild Childs”, seen efforts of racial justice halted, and spaces of black refuge burned down to the ground. By March of this year, I’d seen, experienced and felt the widespread grievance and unrest tied to the deaths of Oscar Grant, Aiyana Jones, Troy Davis, Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, among others. Yet, something is different about the 26 year old me. When the death of Tywanza Sanders of the Emanuel 9, fell upon my ears, my body was gripped with a desire to - not write a post calling for awareness, converse with colleagues and friends, let alone tweet #blacklivesmatter  - but rather, retreat inside of myself, close myself off from the world and lose sense of time, space and reality. Akin to Walker’s protagonist, this collapse of my internal being came without warning and wasn’t met with resistance. You see…Tywanza and I share the same age and we were born within weeks of one another. Although states apart, together we were the future of our communities, the products of generations of prayers and the apples of our mama’s eyes. While we didn’t know one another, our lives were intertwined. His BREATH, mine and that of others, were in and of themselves, intricate and inextricable strands of a shared, radical movement that declared we had a right LIVE. Thus, the level of unconsciousness that accompanies my visions of Tywanza’s last few moments on this earth, is rooted in the feeling that a STREAM OF LIFE defined by dreams, hope and possibility, upon which I and other black folk in our generation thrive and depend, has DRIED OUT. Similar to Meridian, my heartbeat continues to vibrate in my hollowed frame, but with each LOSS IN THE CHAIN OF YOUNG BLACK HUMANITY it seems to grow weaker and sounds increasingly like a ticking timer.     

Yet while I remember Meridian’s periods of unconsciousness, I also recall that she didn’t stay there. Without fail she AROSE from her sickbed renewed and transformed physically, emotionally and spiritually. I am hopeful that my 26th proverb not only resides in my falling down, but in my awakening from the throes of this painful and grievance filled silence. 

Tywanza, I thank you for your life and I pray that your soul is resting in peace, love and everlasting life with the God you left this earth knowing as your mother, father, brother, sister and more. These past few weeks, we as a nation have learned that your faith was mighty. You proclaimed that nothing could separate us from the love of God, not even death. We just have to BELIEVE. My faith pales in comparison to yours, and the trials of the present too often cloud my vision. BUT, as there remains breath in my body, there also remains a fight and a will to believe. 

-Channon M.