Photo: Stephen Maturen/ Getty Images.
Inhale.
Exhale.
…
The power of a breath.
It can be gracefully whisked away from your lungs at the sight of a beautiful specimen that penetrates your soul.
It can bring time to a standstill in a state of meditational practice that can grant you serenity during a trying time.
It can longingly seek out a return to a steady rhythm after an intense display of feat causes it to momentarily release in sharp patterns.
However, what it can’t do is willingly be given to someone else without permission… Only brutally taken by relentless force.
Breathing is the very foundation of our existence. Whether we are blessed with the ability to carry out this action by our own terms, or if some of us may acquire the assistance to keep our lungs pumping, we would be cipher without the inhalation of oxygen to pump esprit through our veins and the exhalation of carbon dioxide to provide the world with a pulse.
This exchanging of air operates on a full 360-degree system that essentially amasses to a give-give situation where every specimen that participates will benefit in the end. Without life, we would be nothing, and without us, life would mean nothing.
Think about this:
When a plane gets sent into distress, the first thing to drop down to maintain stability amongst the hoard of passengers that get jolted into a state of chaos is an oxygen mask. In order to proceed forward with caring for people around you, you must first deal with paying mind to your own well-being. How can we expect to give our all to others in a battle where we must expend all our energy for an extended amount of time in a dire state, when we lay lifeless from a depletion of air that took our last bit of strength that could power us through to the end of an ensuing war with our last breath? Our assistance is null without a heartbeat.
Adding fuel to these current flames will not extinguish what has already been solidified in the past, but rather distract from what sparked it to rage in the first place. Trying to fight fire with fire only ends with a bigger fire.
The definition of insanity is doing the same action over and over again and expecting different results each and every time. We’ve all been down this road before of using violence as our only perceived weapon capable of making our sirens of suffering loud enough to be heard, but despite the common term of “Actions speak louder than words,” sometimes it’s actually inaction that can create ripples harsher than a serrated knife, and can subsequently cut into the core of your being to leave behind everlasting scars from its impact.
But find the fine-line that distinctly separates indifference in neutrality from pleas in proactiveness, and then choose your side wisely.
Make your way to the back of a bus and refuse to give up a seat that is rightfully yours.
Attend school classes and keep your head held high over the swarm of people trying to stop you.
Raise a fist into the air that is shrouded by a black glove as you stand atop an Olympic podium.
Kneel in deafening silence during the National Anthem before an NFL game.
At the end of the day, I have no right to proclaim to an individual the proper way to express their own emotions to relieve turmoil, but as I’ve observed from the sidelines (and may I add I apologize for how long I have done so), it has become evident to me that these movements have been the historical forms of protest that created whiplash amongst a nation far greater than any war has caused.
I do not and will never fully comprehend what it is like to be in the shoes of another individual, especially that of a minority, but I can only try to the best of my ability to grasp ahold of an empathetic standpoint that will allow me to conceive a minor notion of how other people of color may assess and react to any troubling position they find themselves standing in. It is the very differences amongst us as a human race where we can find ultimate unity in understanding. However, it would be ignorant of me to continue to say that “I do not see color” as my only defense since this is also the main point of distinction that has made some of us incapable of moving past archaic ideologies in history.
But in order to teach, one must first do.
All I ask is that if you find yourself in a place of capacity where you hold the answers that unlock the doors of ambiguity, please search deep within your soul to grace those around you with the knowledge you have that can help to clear the fog of ignorance. This voice you were fortunate enough to be given can embrace future generations in an aura of optimism for the progression of acceptance amongst all races.
We have to take back what is rightfully ours and then use this drive to speak volumes for those who feel they have been hindered and silenced by oppression for far too long.
This country made a promise to itself that all are created equal.
Let’s practice what has been preached since the beginning to demand and uphold what our country claims the essence of our establishment was built on.
I saw a video of a person explaining that if a mother has five children and one of them gets stung by a bee, the child that is hurting will be the one to receive attention and care, not the other siblings who were unaffected at the moment.
Look around you: Where are the unsettling moments of pain deriving from at this time that could use a Band-Aid for reparation?
The time to heal is now.
Yes, we’ve all heard people clapping back with responses like:
“Every voice matters.”
“Every one matters.”
“Every life matters.”
But these exclamations are the things that we ultimately want… Not what we currently have.
These quintessential “every’s” of existence won’t ring true until we first focus on what genuinely matters:
Justice.
…
Inhale.
Exhale.