While your life may be hard, it’s just not harder due to the excess melanin in your skin. It is not blaming whiteness for the injustice, but it is acknowledging that blackness has an added struggle.

Some of us have been searching for a vaccine for this virulent virus for a long time.

It is, by all accounts, exceedingly difficult to contain. It spreads from generation to generation, and it’s easy to label as asymptomatic. Those who have devoted their lives to finding a cure have been laid to rest six-feet under: soul-distancing, some would say.

I’ve discovered when it began. Our ancestors ingested a forbidden fruit. They were lured into sin by the whispers of Satan who proclaimed, “I am better than him...you created me from fire and created him from clay.” This satanic pandemic can be traced back to the poison of pride.

The antigens of this virus reveal themselves in our vocabulary.

Dozens of micro-aggressions permeate our language: black-mailed, black-listed, and black-balled. A black mark is a blemish, and a black cat is bad luck.  Afro-engineered is a poorly constructed project, a euphemism for ni****-rigged.

If we take a step back and operate as forensic scientists, we can find remnants of this pervasive, harmful disease.

The test for pride requires serious introspection.  After I tested positive, I put on a face mask to contain my condition. I sheltered in mind, meditating on all the past positions I mistook.

Thankfully, with God’s grace, I am recovering. Just because I’m on the upswing does not mean I am immune, but I feel that I am in a unique position to speak on it.

Let’s pull an example from the prophetic path to address this pandemic. When Musa (Moses) was instructed to go to Pharoah, God commanded him to speak gently...speak gently to a tyrant.

This is not to say that idols that reinforce racism should not be destroyed, as that was also the Prophetic path of Ibrahim (Abraham).

I’m just saying that my path is more accommodating to that instruction: speaking gently.

My path is searching and using the right words. My path is avoiding the wrong words. My path is reaching the most people. If black lives don’t matter, then all lives can’t matter.

Whichever path you take, be it the Abrahamic path or the Mosaic one, I hope my path complements yours. We need all hands on deck to relieve the pressure on our collective necks.

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