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Slavery isn’t what happened when they took away our ancestors and sold them off to the plantations of shame. It is what they let themselves be when they were dragged away from their homes, the way they refused to live and chose to die. The end, they knew would come someday, sooner or later. Some decided to choose the easier path, to live longer and they were buried in the cheap cemeteries, right where stray mutts were dumped, forlorn, rejected and forgotten. Some chose to go down, but not without a fight. They chose not to fear the hail of bullets or the acidic saliva from those who wielded the whip. Their names till today are written in bright colors, for though they never saw the next day, they lit a torch that guided their children all the way to the future. The blood they shed irrigated the parched earth and from there rose new seeds of freedom and liberty. Time comes when one has to take a new approach to everything. Why use old methods to solve new problems? Pain has made you all fired up and the drums of war are sounding in everybody’s backyards. The men are rummaging through their decaying granaries to fish out their muskets and women under the beds to find their rolling pins. Children are being shot in the streets and players are turned into spectators in their own game. But be careful not to throw the baby with the bath water. We have evil among us, but we got shades of good too. Be keen that in your struggle you vilify not those who side with you in war. Be brave, people and you shall win, have foolish courage and at the end of the day you will be spread in the open field to be picked at by vultures. Fight for what you think is just but you should know the difference between pursuit of victory and pursuit of revenge. If bitterness is what motivates you then the war is wrong, but if the look of fear in your children’s eyes makes yours tear, then the course is just. BLACK LIVES MATTER

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