I came across a beautiful poem this morning by Langston Hughes.

I, Too

I, too, sing America

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed –

I, too, am America.

I heard a piece on NPR and it was another conversation about race.

One Black man said, and I’m paraphrasing, “We don’t need another conversation. We don’t need to be ‘heard’ by White people and we don’t talk a lot about White privilege in the black community. We just want to get the same access to health care, equal chances when renting apartments or going for a mortgage and not to be discriminated against going for a job.”

I understood that. It was good to hear.

How we feel about injustice is important. But a conversation about race and a conversation about global warming and a conversation about sexual violence against women isn’t the goal.

I don’t have a blog about writing to heal trauma because I love writing about trauma. Much of it is interesting to me but so are about 1000 other things in the world. I have a blog about this topic because people are still being traumatized and injured in ways that have lasting and painful consequences. Some traumas can’t be prevented. Many of them can. All people can receive more humane and intelligent information and care about trauma’s impact. That’s why I blog.

CHANGE is the goal. Equality is the goal. Justice is the goal. Humane humanity is the goal.

And it’s too bad equality and safety still have to be argued for and we have to have a conversation about a conversation about injustice as though injustice is just one perspective one might have and not real.

Words, poetry, art and song help the soul deal with pain and injustice. And I can’t imagine a life without them. But the goal isn’t only to be heard or seen,

The goal is to be free.

Free from (fill in the blank).

Free to (fill in the blank).

The FREE is key and why activism is still important because meaningful conversations can’t be had when not everyone is at the table.