what can we do

This is why we need the creative arts, to help us make sense of all this mess.

A wise man, who may be my father, said this days after news broke of the deaths of #AltonSterling, #PhilandoCastile, and the five Dallas police officers murdered in cold blood.

As people who call themselves writers, it is in times of great conflict that we tend to fold in and hit the page. Or face out and write. At its core, this particular time feels hopeless. It is 2016. We wake up every morning to news reports of another massive shooting. The unrest is terrifying. Solutions do not feel near.

If only because we are afraid, let us begin, continue, start to write. Let’s write about everything we know, the experiences we cannot relate to, and the things that we have never seen. Let’s write stories and essays about the bodies that were destroyed. Our rage is important. And, as we have been taught, our silence will not protect us.

There are days when you wonder, what your role is in this country and what your future is in it. From my point of view, no label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, indeed no religion is more important than the human being. James Baldwin