Today I ended a conversation with a group of youth activists by asking, 'Who do you do this for?" I was coming to our conversation with heaviness, struggling to reconcile what happened to Iyanna Dior and the deafening silence, mine included. Granted, stories about the violence against Black Trans women hardly ever go viral and I unintentionally scrolled onto the video of Iyanna being beaten by Black cis-gendered people in the same city that George Floyd was murdered.
These two lives are not in competition with each other.
I believe that Black Lives Matters. But blacklivesmatter is not enough when some Black lives are still valued less than others. I grieve the limits of our outrage. I grieve the limits of our visions for liberation.
And I grieve our lack of courage and willful cognitive dissonance. But I always believe we can and will do better (that's why I teach and am taught). It just starts with being clear about who and what we are fighting for. So I fight for the most marginalized of us because I know that when they are free, I am free. # blacktranslivesmatter #iyannadior
Note: I want to add that my question does not promote saviorhood or paternalism. We should be in community with the most marginalized of us and prioritize what they say their needs are.
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