As a caregiver, particularly to someone living with dementia, I suppress my emotions so as not to trigger inconsolable fear or sadness in my mother. See, for someone with Frontotemporal Dementia, it can be nearly impossible for them to recognize, compartmentalize, and regulate emotional responses. Learning of the death of a loved one could lead to attempts to take one's own life, but the death of a perfect stranger or familiar celebrity may have an equally significant impact.
If you are like me, you may feel overwhelmed and under-qualified to fully address the deeply rooted issues at hand in a way that produces sustainable, systemic change. Tensions in workplaces, places of worship, and households are running high and relationships are being tested. (Although, for me, I refuse to engage with foolishness from people who don't get it and have no desire to understand; keeps my blood pressure from rising.)
"...there is nothing great about entering a stranger's home, killing the family inside the home, claiming the home as your own, kidnapping a family from another neighborhood and forcing that family to work for your company for no pay and endless abuse. For hundreds of years. And then punishing the kidnapped family once someone says they are allowed to go free by restricting where they can live, what schools they can go to, and where they can use the bathroom."
In kindergarten, I was spat upon and called the N-word by my White classmates. I have zero memory of this experience. It was so traumatic I blocked it out, but it has been recounted to me on several occasions. That same year, a White neighborhood boy told me other little White girls in the class wouldn't be allowed to play with me because I'm Black...
