This Post Is Unlike the Rest

Below is a bit of something pulled from a journal. It is a bit unlike earlier posts. 

It is easy to take for granted the beautiful blackness of Detroit. When i travel, no matter where i am, i look for black faces.  There is something that feels like home, a familiarity, a web of roots that connect deep below the surface...even though you can always see them or hear them or touch them. But i can feel them. 

My heart and mind understand that race cannot be the basis for unifying or for assuming that people have your back, that they appreciate your humanity, or that they share the same values. The reality is that black people are responsible for inflicting trauma on others - particularly other blacks - often at the same level as whites or arabs. 

Locking eyes with a black person from Panama or Cuba or Jamaica or England or Oakland (CA) or South Florida or wherever, when surrounded by many others...well all i can say is that something happens that can't be explained. Perhaps a shared knowing; of what, i can't be sure because the experiences are so varied. But just something inexplicable.

I came across this when looking at my journal when in California...a very different place that has its own issues, challenges, concerns, inequities, and so on. But all places hold lessons. Lessons that speak to our hearts if we remain open to them.  The biggest one on this journey? The importance of relationships. 

More later.