We are O B S E S S E D with fame. We crave it, we desire it, we fathom what it would be like to have it all and be anything we want, but the truth is that the cage may be prettier, but no matter how high you get in the world of anything, it’s really just another cage.
There is a lot of stuff that I can’t say. Every time I say shit like cops don’t care, I think about the wonderful, genuinely good people I know who happen to be cops, and I know they care, but I also know they are swimming in a sea of people who don’t care, who don’t know how to care.
So we become obsessed with what we don’t have, thinking that if we were just more powerful, just more rich, just more, then we’d be happier.
What if we’re not “supposed” to be happier, what if happy-er- isn’t the goal, what if our focus needs to be on something larger than our own happiness?
In the show, The Winchesters, and its predecessor, Supernatural, the story is about a group of characters who never really find happiness, but they do save the world, a BUNCH of times, is that enough?
Would that make you happy? In both shows, it’s the moments in between monster fights they find their greatest happiness. A beer shared between brothers, fireworks shared with lovers, small moments that become monumental because you know what life is like without them.
Each of us has to focus on the things that bring us peace in times of chaos, and that can be really hard and isolating when you really just want the pain to stop.
This weekend the video of Tyre Nichols being beaten to death by 5 Black cops was released, and there was very much a “the video premiere of the world,” feeling to the release. “Just a few more days, just a few more hours,” there was so much EXCITEMENT about the release of the video.
It’s really hard after witnessing something like that, to go on and try and find something that makes us happy, but I think Tyre, Devonna Walker, Breonna Taylor, and the many, many other Black folks killed by police-instigated violence, would want us to be happy.
I also think they’d want to be alive. I think they’d want the chance to get married, have children, and live the fantasy of happily ever after, like so many of us are promised.
Some people have the luxury of standing by and doing nothing, but if you’re reading this letter, then you are not one of those people.
You are someone who was born into a world at war, and now you have to decide who you’re going to be in spite of that war. Racism is the killer, misogyny, white supremacy, and the patriarchy, are the three tenants by which racism survives.
If we are to ever truly be happy, then we have to focus on our mission in this life. it’s bigger than having a purpose, it’s a lifelong calling. Giving out water on hot days, and providing food on cold ones, are tangible ways to change someone’s life.
It may not seem like much, but protesting is only going to get us so far in this world, if we want real change, then we have to be the ones to create that change, and maybe it’s chaotic at first, but if in the end, when the dust settles, we know that we did what we could to plug the holes where we could, then we are living our lives for those whose lives were stolen.
Oprah said it was time to kill the Nazis, they won’t let us teach history in school, they are fighting against our right to drive down the street safely, and they are fighting for our chance to be free people, so I say we give them the exact opposite of what they want and let them choke on it.
They want to create their own little Nazi schools at home, well so then in response, YOU should be teaching YOUR children critical race theory at home, that should always be the response. Education over violence, if happiness is what you’re looking for, then ask yourself what that looks like.
For me, it looks like a world filled with Black folk who don’t get murdered for a living. Remember. in2020 when white folk were calling the cops on Black, bird watchers? This is what they wanted. This is PRECISELY what they wanted, so what are YOU going to do about it?
I ask myself this question every day and my only answer is that I am going to soak up as much as I possibly can before it’s my turn, because one thing is for certain, it’s always our turn at some point.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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