Text Tuesdays – New Prose – “My Skin, My Only Sin”

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Atlanta, Black Lives Matter, Blue Hurt, Blue Lines, Blue Lines Blog, California, Charlotte, Death, Georgia, Keith Lamont Scott, Keith Scott, Key Yemaya Walker, Keypsiia, Keypsiia Walker, Keypsiia Yemaya Walker, Murder, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Poem, poetry, Police, Prose, Sacramento, Terence Crutcher, Text Tuesdays, The Village at College Downs, Tulsa, UNC, UNC Chapel Hill, University City, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

It was all met by your hands,
Your lack of decency,
Your lack of regard,
Your lack of training,
Your lack of humanity,

Now tears are wasted by:
My mother,
My father,
My wife,
The despicable person you are,

Blue Lines Blog -Throwback Thursday

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Alton Sterling, Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Blue Hurt, Blue Lines, Blue Lines Blog, California, facebook, Falcon Heights, Fruitvale Station, Georgia, Key Yemaya Walker, Keypsiia, Keypsiia Walker, Keypsiia Yemaya Walker, LA Riots, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Minnesota, Murder, Oakland, OJ Simpson, Oscar Grant, Philando Castile, Photography, Police Brutality, Rodney King, Sacramento, San Francisco, twitter, UNC, UNC Chapel Hill

I wake up further enraged this morning…there is no time to mourn when the news of the next murder is broadcast. How much longer will we cast a blind eye, and allow locations, tweets, and posts to be evidence of our disgust and displeasure, yet let it end there? The pandemic of violence against us in the United States, and systematic violation and disregard of our lives is reported daily. Should my future wife have to worry whether I will come home, or whether she has to watch me die in public? Should I have to worry about my future son not returning home from college? Should my future daughter live in fear that at any moment, her father, brother, boyfriend…husband, will not return from their day? Will I make it home alive tonight?

I refuse to live my life in fear, but these are real questions to be asked in a country where increasingly obscure locations, towns, and places become unfriendly reminders of how devalued the life of a Black man is. Last year I felt an uneasiness as I rode past Fruitvale Station…what was simply a stop on the B.A.R.T. is now an eerie reminder of a New Year’s shooting of an unarmed Oscar Grant was murdered by a police officer. Our lives our being reduced to temporary outpourings of grief, vigils, speeches, and memories tied to a location. However, I wasn’t…we weren’t born to be symbols of tragedies that continue to repeated on, as we have seen the last two days, a daily basis. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are simply the new names added the growing list of disregarded lives.

Blue Lines Blog – Editorial – Gun Culture

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Atlanta, Biggie Smalls, Blue Hurt, Blue Lines, Blue Lines Blog, California, Editorial, Florida, Gun, Gun Culture, Gun Violence, Kanye, Kanye West, Key Yemaya Walker, Keypsiia, Keypsiia Walker, Keypsiia Yemaya Walker, Murder, New York, North Carolina, Notorious B.I.G, Opinion, Orlando, Pulse, Pulse night Club, Sacramento, The Notorious B.I.G., UNC Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Victory 2004, Webster Hall, writing

During pre-work cardio this morning “Victory 2004” entered my playlist, and to hear the lyrics “shootouts for 20 minutes, until we finish,” came on it though it resonated with the events of the weekend, and further thoughts that the author of those lyrics, Christopher Wallace, was a victim of gun violence.

In the aftermath of the violence in Orlando, there is a collective question of “why,” however we live in a country highlighted by the Aurora massacre, and the tragedy in Sandy Hook. The American public is desensitized to the violence that abounds, and this event will be washed over as the others were, especially to those that it does not touch. The NRA will feel again that this is an affront on their constitutional rights, and there will be some new angle to explain away what happened in the early hours of the morning in Orlando, Florida. We will even receive excuses on why we (U.S. Citizens) should be in possession of AR-15s or any assault rifle.

Blue Lines Blog – RIP Trayvon Martin

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Blue Lines, Blue Lines Blog, Child, facebook, Florida, Instagram, Key Yemaya Walkwr, Murder, Photography, photoshop, Protest, Trayvon Martin, Truth

I broke my facebook fast for something important.

The manuscript Blue Lines is the fictional coming of age narrative of a young California woman Key Yemaya Walker, and her 2 year growing journey through school, love, and life period piece, written by Kenneth Suffern, Jr., taking place at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill between the years of 1997 – 1998. Loosely based on true events, and experiences during that time, told through the eyes and voice of the main female protagonist, a freshman first attending the school.