Ain’t I Human?

I’ve never expected much from America. 

At baseline, I’m a Black girl from Baltimore City, so yeah, I knew I couldn’t expect much. My parents tried to give me juicy promises of “you can be anything you want”, but when you’re Black and growing up anywhere in America at any point in its history, you quickly learn those promises aren’t for you. I couldn’t expect much.

I watched my parents work hard, both of them. I think they too knew they couldn’t expect much, but they still lived in an America where Black people could work three, four, sometimes five times as hard and obtain some resemblance of success. I thought that was my America too. I was wrong. My America raises the prices of common necessities at criminally high rates causing people to have to choose between feeding themselves and having shelter. My America won’t ban assault rifles and address its mental health epidemic just to feed the generations long fear of white people who think that Black and brown people will rise up and annihilate their families and pillage their homes just like they did us. My America sold 90s kids a pipe dream life that was already beginning to bubble over. 

The housing market. The healthcare system. The economy. The education system. The climate. The Patriarchy. Police Brutality. White Supremacy. Nuclear Families. Racism. Homophobia. Transphobia. Facism. Hatred. Fear. Ignorance. Sadness. Despair. Capitalism.

The signs were there, they could have fixed it. There is no “work harder” in this America when they’ve made it damn near impossible to survive. Trust me, I’ve tried. America was made to be this way. So I’ve come to know, I can’t expect much.

I knew I wouldn’t be taken care of.

I knew that ease would be no friend to me.

I knew I would be sad and discouraged. 

I knew things would be difficult. 

Even knowing all of this, I never expected to be treated less than human.

By the time I realized my humanity was being systematically striped away, I was decades into the matrix. Depressed. Anxious. Drowning. Even now, as I think about it, it is difficult to put into words what it feels like to realize other humans on this planet think that any combination of my blackness, queerness, gender, and socioeconomic status make me not worth existing. I’m a human being. How can one set of humans pass laws and create systems knowingly making it difficult for any amount of other humans to survive. All. For. Money. How can another set of humans decide that hate and fear disguised as religion is a good enough reason to eradicate (their word, not mine) other humans.

We act as if there is no price for human blood spilled.

We act as if there is no consequence for hundreds of years of genocide, murder, and dehumanization.   

I don’t expect much from America, but I didn’t expect this.

I fear Sojourner Truth only had it partially right. 

“Ain’t I a woman?”

Fuck, ain’t I human?