For 400 years, Black people in America have been attentive to the movement of those around us. 

From the movement of the brush in Africa when we were captured to the rival tribesperson beside us in the middle passage,

We were attentive to the constellation of the North Star and the Ohio River that pointed to freedom.

We have been attentive to lanterns on the Underground Railroad and to the need to return to bring others to freedom.  

We have been attuned to the Spirit of God—the decolonized God of Nat Turner, the visions of God in Harriet Tubman, and the dream of God in Dr. King.

And we have been generous—generous with our milk to feed our masters’ babies, generous with our wisdom to manage a household that we could never live in, generous with inventions that we have not been given credit for.

Generous with our forgiveness—for lynching, church burning, Charleston church shooting and racial mistreatment in business and worship. 

And we have been generous—generous with our milk to feed our masters’ babies, generous with our wisdom to manage a household that we could never live in, generous with inventions that we have not been given credit for.

Generous with our forgiveness—for lynching, church burning, Charleston church shooting and racial mistreatment in business and worship. 

And we have been content to sing, shout, and pray behind the doors of our churches, content to remain in our segregated communities with struggling schools and the threat that gentrification will expel us into a different kind of ghetto. 

We have been content to be CNAs to patients who call us derogatory names, content to worship in churches we can’t lead or even have a voice in, content to work as diversity officers and experts on race without the necessary preparation or compensation.

For 400 years we have been attentive, attuned to God’s Spirit, generous, and content. 

Meanwhile our children—God’s melanated children—keep dying. 

Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd  

God’s children—nameless and faceless to the people, to the systems, to the disease of racism in our country—renders them

breathless.