My Black Future Dream

I speak from a place of hope today. Let’s imagine what our Black futures could look like. Will it be a place of struggle, innovation, healing, or complacency? Today we hold our collective futures in our hands and there are several paths before us. I know what our past looks like. I see images of dogs, struggling families, and incarcerated Black bodies. 

In my life I have watched family members be arrested, have guns drawn on them, or heard stories of unjust incarceration. Many of my family members have been incarcerated, and most if not all have experienced police harassment. We have witnessed death that could have been easily prevented. Black death is something that dominates our pasts, both recent and distant. 

So I circle back and think, what is our Black future, and present? What do we fight for and what world do we want to see? In my Black future I see all hierarchies abolished. The needless deaths of my friends and families will dwindle to zero and we will finally be seen. No longer will I have to worry about doctors ignoring our pleas for help, or carry a dread that today will be the day the cops decide to hunt us down.

 In my Black future I will be allowed to exist and be free. Prisons will be abolished and replaced with healing centers and investments into communities mired in poverty. Reparations will be real and honored, and economic strife will be eliminated. I won’t fear for my life or suffer at the hands of homophobia, transphobia, and misogynoir. Spaces will feel safe and warm, like the soft caress of a blanket. I see this vision of a collective community gathered together and working to fight against climate change, natural disasters, and pandemics. 

We will all feel a calling to care and love one another. This is the Black future I dream of. A future where we are seen and held and loved. In this future I see us all in this not so distant or far off dream. This dream is what we fight for now as we march in the streets and call for justice.