I’m tired.

I missed posting last week because I was grading, grading, grading.

And I was all set to post something this week, but then the Ferguson decision happened and the shooting of Tamir Rice happened, and I was consumed by rage and so many words that I couldn’t even get them out.

What it all boils down to is that I’m tired.

It’s exhausting being a black person in America. I cannot keep having the same conversations where I have to keep asserting my worth and the worth of my family and the worth of my child and my friends.

I have so many words that they are all inadequate to express my rage and frustration and grief.

So I am infinitely grateful to the people who are able to articulate their rage, frustration, and grief. To the ones who write think pieces and explain over and over and over and over and OVER again that Black lives matter, that diverse fiction/media is important, that racism has not gone away and here are all the ways we can see it playing out over and over again.

A student asked me on Tuesday if it was wrong for him to be nervous about going to FSU (there was a shooting there), and I told him, no it wasn’t wrong. But I also told him that he was probably in more danger just walking down the street. To which he kind of shrugged and nodded.

That’s why I’m tired. Because we both know that’s true, and so many other people are still failing to see that that’s the reality we live with. Those people are instead choosing to condemn us because we’re upset and angry.

So, yes. I’m tired.

I’m tired.