How We Got Here
Each morning, I rise with the sounds of life going by.
After refreshing and awakening myself, I have a routine. My coffee is part of my meditation.
Once I have that all set, I like to sit and meditate. This morning, it was in Proverbs 8 while eating pistachios and peaches. As I was sipping my lavender and vanilla latte with the sounds of the day unfolding, I couldn't help but think about how we got here.
Was it in 1964, the year of my birth, and the Civil Rights Act was signed?
Was it in 1965, the year of my little brother's birth and the Voting Rights Act was signed?
Or perhaps 1968, the year of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the ensuing riots of pent up frustration from the years and years of Jim and Jane Crow abuse?
Was it 1972, the year my father moved us from one town to the other and not long after, when a cross was burned in our front yard for the sin of my father wanting my step-brother to take Algebra at the integrated high school?
Was it 1980, the year that uneducated actor rose to the position of President and decided to start a war in a country where we now how descendants of those who fled being chased down by the khaki wearing grandsons of warmongers?
Was it in 1994, when again the voice of the unheard erupted after a Foundational Black American Man was assaulted in the streets by those wearing a uniform suggesting peace but bringing anything but that.
Was it in 2000, when by the flick of a chad, an election was stolen in modern time and a less-than-stellar son of a former one was now in the highest office of the land.
Was it in 2001, after the taunting of a nation made them retaliate against us and literally fly into towers stretching to the heavens.
Was it in 2008, when the son of those who came from other lands and formed a new people, rose to the highest office with his wife, descendants of the Foundational Black Americans whose toil turned the land into wealth for everyone else.
Was it in 2012, when the nation dared hope and re-elected that man who wanted everyone to have food and clothing, health and home, education and opportunity.
Was it in 2013, when those lacking the kiss of the sun gunned down within a few seconds an innocent child simply trying to enjoy the play of land.
Was it in 2014, when it the blazing heat of a midwestern summer, another scared-of-his-shadow not-from-the-neighborhood wearer of the uniform promising peace but bringing fear, gunned down a barely-turned-eighteen Foundational Black American boy visiting his grandmother and then left his body to rot in the hot sun for hours.
Was it in 2020, in the middle of shut-down across the world, another scared-of-himself filled-with-hate uniform wearer kneeled on the neck of a Foundational Black American man just trying to feed his family.
Was it in 2021, when the one-who-never-should-have-been-there and was refusing-to-admit-defeat, called the sons and grandsons of what walking-hate-produced to storm the capital and desecrate dreams of a nation.
Was it in 2024, when that same one, through crookery and turn of a dial, somehow was placed back in that place and unleashed the most inhumane forms of treachery to fill his empty soul.
Was it yesterday of yesterday, when khaki now-they-can-wear-a-mask sons and grandsons of rage walked through the streets to try to intimidate a browning nation, carrying weapons they don't know how to use, starting a war they only fought in their basements.
I sipped my coffee, looked out over the comings and goings of the day, pondering wisdom, and kept trying to put my finger on when.
The reality is that it is all of this and stretches back to 1492 when the land across the ocean threw out their near-do-wells because they had neither place nor food to care for them. It was after their second sons and cousins of second sons who would never inherit fled to other places. More than just the English, it was the Dutch and the Portuguese, the French and the Italian, all related by blood, all trying to hold onto their ancient of ancient, trading the ways of trade, trying to be rulers of men.
For hundreds of years, those without empathy and only greed and hatred in their hearts, desiccated lands that, while not perfect, were certainly home, peaceful, and regenerative for the centuries of people who called it home.
There isn't a place that hasn't been touched by the inhumanity of those-without-melanin traversing the earth trying to be rulers of what never belonged to them.
That is part of why they want to hide it, to turn their face away from their wrongdoing, to burn books and cover up art, to plow up gardens and make it all concrete. That is why they destroy the Everglades and hastily build a concentration camp. They do it because they have nothing else to offer.
It is because of fear.
Because they know they are the ultimate minority in the world.
Because even their women don't want them so they legislated away her rights to her own body and began raping their girlchilden to force them to be breeders of hate.
Because they believed their anatomy rendered them superior but when faced with what true genius looks like, realized they had nothing to offer. And the world knew it.
So, here we are.
History shines her light back on us and demands that we sit down and reckon with it, to listen to read, to write, to tell, and to not turn our eyes away from the horror.
History also reminds us that we are more than them.
History informs us that ultimately fear will not win. The only things the khaki-pants-boys really have is a weapon.
If one overcomes the fear, for as one flippant elected woman told her constituents, "we are all going to die," then one can just find their courage to not die a coward, to not die complicit, to not die compliant.
How we got here is a long analysis of history.
Perhaps it was 2019, the 400th year of when my people landed here not-of-their-will to build life on land stolen from people here for millennia. Maybe it was the hyped up book and her over marketing it on social media that scared the pale-skinned-men who thought they could work their plan slower, but realized even their kind was waking up and they needed them asleep.
Perhaps it was simply this past year when the delusions of a wannabe trillionaire-by-any-means was pumping up the closer-to-death-never-produced-anything-wanabeking decided to run again instead of facing the consequences of his actions, rendered a felon by the juries of his peers, resulted in the impossible being possible - again.
Perhaps it was the multiple failings of the systems that were designed to stop this - the AG who never did what he was supposed to do and kept punting, the one who successfully was prosecuting the crimes-against-humanity decided that the system would work and dropped the charges once the felon was elected, or it was the packed-court who kept giving a pass that now we no longer have a real constitution, or it was the final blow when even the death-stare-woman-from-the-faraway-state punted and the ones she punted to voted for the deaths of 15-percent of the population.
Perhaps it was all this and more.
What do we do now?
We look at what happened.
Like the Old Testament of this ancient library that I cherish teaches me, we sit with where we failed, that is what the Oracles of the Prophets are about, making a people, however loved and affirmed, look back at where they dropped the promise. We look at it.
This is a land stolen, built by a people stolen, supported by a people whose homeland was destroyed by a people who were the lowest of the low from their ancestral land that they can never return to.
What I know is that there will be a tomorrow.
There always has been.
And the grandchildren will look back over this time and ask, how did they let this happen?
I've protested, I've written, I've voted, I've lost connection even with family who refused to listen to what was coming. I've done all this for the future I hope for my three grandchildren. For all the grandchildren.
I've held onto the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that insists that all humanity has a right to life in the fullest way possible.
I'm holding onto hope, directly, intentionally, actively.
©2025. All Rights Reserved by Tayé Foster Bradshaw Group LLC.
Sipping a lavender vanilla latte looking out over the comings-and-goings of life, dreaming of tomorrow.
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Thoughtful dialogue is appreciated.