Brokenhearted

“Being brokenhearted leads to clarity about our unwillingness to abide racist behavior. It is very disheartening to hear white people who are not trying to move beyond being allies try to explain acts of racist terror and other daily denigrations of people of color with oversimplifications instead of properly naming them. The energy generated from a broken heart will not engage with oversimplified ways of looking at the reality of what is happening in the lives of the oppressed as they strain under the weight of oppression and all the ways that it kills the body and injures the soul. It will not tolerate superficial answers to the real questions that must be answered by folks seeking to be liberated. Brokenheartedness is a prerequisite for truly becoming a fellow pilgrim and not simply an ally who can come and go from the resistance whenever it is convenient.” — Catherine Meeks, The Night is Long but Light Comes in the Morning