Parable

This is sort of a parable shared by my friend Odysseus Laertiádēs Not gonna pretend to speak for all poc in America, but the best way I describe what it's like to be black there is this: Your home is broken into. Many members of your family are killed and you are locked away or carted off to provide free labor at the robber's home or business. The robbers/killers then invite all their friends and family over to celebrate their grand discovery and innovative approach to business. They, of course, do this while demonizing and mocking you at every opportunity, spitting in your face when you demand justice. The demonization of your existence spreads to nearby towns until nearly everyone is on board with hating you and loving the one who has harmed you most. The thieves/killers, though decidedly resentful of your existence, cannot deny the value of your home's decor and the many artifacts of your life, so they hold a yard sale and generate massive wealth from not only your labor but from the selling of those things you and your family created while, again, demonizing your for daring to exist at all. And the entire time this unfolds before your eyes, you are told time and time again that you are wrong to be angry. You are told that the robbers/killers are the ones who built that home, even though you know it is stolen. You are told that you are the originators of nothing and little more than squatters on someone else's land, the thieves' land, and you should be thankful that you are not dead like the family whose names you can no longer remember. To be in America as a black person is to live amongst thieves who brazenly declare themselves the righteous kindly saviors in the story of your genocide, a genocide of their making.