Land of the Free? Home of the Brave?

Trauma.

Trauma affects our body physically and emotionally, Trauma is an EMERGENCY. When the body experiences physical trauma you call for help; 911 !! EMS rushes in, they assess the emergency, they place IVs, they begin resuscitative measures until you reach more trained help. People act fast and no time is wasted .Adrenaline is pumping through these people’s veins! A LIFE IS AT STAKE. You can picture that image right? It is tangible. It is real and it happens everyday which is why there are trained professionals for these instances.

Now let's look at emotional trauma. One minute, ,everything is fine and right in the world. The next, you receive a phone call that changes your life. Your mind, your spirit is in a state of emergency. Your heart rate is up, you are sweating, crying, screaming. There is a traumatic emergency going on in your head, though no one is actually hurt or bleeding physically. You look around and there is no one to call, there is no 911 for emotional trauma. The pain is very real and the very breath is escaping your lungs, but no one is coming in a hurry to save you. You are on the floor bleeding out and no one can see it. if you were to call 911 with a “ mental emergency ,” you would have very angry EMS workers for wasting their time and resources. You can’t go to the emergency room for that.

No one else sees or feels the pain, but it is very real and tangible for you. You fall into anxiety and depression and simply getting out of bed is difficult, yet you are still required to go on about your day because there are people who depend on you. Scary right?

Now let’s take a group of people and lets throw trauma at them everyday for centuries. Murders, senseless killings, hangings, threats to them and their families, let’s throw them in jail for no good reason at all, let’s give them the worst of everything, make it hard for them to feed their families , make it hard to get good employment and even more difficult to progress to the top.Let us pay them less or give them side eyes, let us raise our children to hate them. let’s shun a whole race of people simply because they are black.

This is America.

The very America, my own parents fought so hard to get to because they wanted to give their daughters a better life. The American Dream! The truth is the American Dream everyone desires is built so that it only comes easy to people who fit the description of white America…

I am emotional, I am angry, I am hurt. The very fact that people are being murdered for the color of their skin and people actually have the audacity to justify it, is disgusting. It is horrific. It is disturbing. The truth is people do not care what happens to others until it happens to them. This cannot be so. Fathers, brothers, husbands, sons are being killed and we have just been sitting, twiddling our thumbs and brushing it off as loss. While a whole race of people has been suffering. NOT OK.

It brings me to tears to see people on the streets protesting for black lives, yet it saddens me that it has taken us this long to do so.

This is an EMERGENCY. We cannot sit idle anymore. People are DYING! Trauma is happening! Send Help!

No, I do not know not what it is like to grow up black, but my children will know. I fear for my sons. They may be tender and cute now, but what about when they are older and fit someones “ description.” What about when hate is against them. Will someone assault my children based on their appearance as well? This mama will not sit back and watch. Black lives deserve better, my sons deserve a more promising future. America has to do better, be better, but it starts at home, We must teach our children love and equality.

My children will know it all. They will know the struggles of being black in America and they will also know the struggles of being Latino in America . Minorities deserve better. America is a melting pot of people. It’s time we started treating it that way.

Always ,

-MAK