I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

by Austin Channing Brown

Whiteness has never needed much of an excuse for our deaths.

At the end of the day, Blackness is always the true offense.

Perfection is demanded of Blackness before mercy or grace or justice can even be considered.

racism never went away; it just evolved.

I am not impressed with America’s progress.

only within the last generation did America reach the baseline for human decency.

It hurt to know America could still hurt me.

For all their talk about being persecuted, white Christian Americans don’t know this kind of terror. Generations of Black Americans have known nothing but this kind of terror.

Even when the world doesn’t believe that Black bodies are capable of love. Even when it doesn’t believe that I survive on intimacy, that I need other beings for love. Even when I would prefer to be immune, I am human. I demand intimacy. I demand tomorrow. I demand love.

In its true form, reconciliation possesses the impossible power of the lion lying down with the lamb; the transformative power of turning swords into plowshares.

Reconciliation is not a magic word that we can trot out whenever we need healing or inspiration.

Reconciliation chooses sides, and the side is always justice.

The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse.

whatever diversity is included is still essentially white—it just adds people of color like sprinkles on top. The cake is still vanilla.

When our voices are truly desired, numbers will cease to be the sole mark of achievement.

dialogue is productive toward reconciliation only when it leads to action—when it inverts power and pursues justice for those who are most marginalized.

reconciliation is not about white feelings. It’s about diverting power and attention to the oppressed, toward the powerless.

Reconciliation is the pursuit of the impossible—an upside-down world where those who are powerful have relinquished that power to the margins.

Love, for whiteness, dissolves into a demand for grace, for niceness, for endless patience—to keep everyone feeling comfortable while hearts are being changed.

I am not interested in love that is aloof.

I need a love that chooses justice.

Hopelessness and I have become good friends.

People read his words about America—about its history, about its present, about the realities of living in a Black body—and then demanded hopefulness.

And so hope for me has died one thousand deaths.

I don’t really want to recount all the ways that hope has let me down; it’s so damn painful.

The death of hope begins in fury, ferocious as a wildfire.

I cannot hope even in myself. I am no one’s savior.

This is the shadow of hope. Knowing that we may never see the realization of our dreams, and yet still showing up.

How dare I consider surrender simply because I want the warmth of the sun? This warmth has not been promised to me. My faith does not require it.

When the sun happens to shine, I bask in the rays. But I know I cannot stay there. That is not my place to stand. So I abide in the shadows, and let hope have its day and its death. It is my duty to live anyway.