What leaving America taught me

As I sit at the table writing this, I am amazed at the peace that has washed over me. Leaving the United States has been the best thing to happen to me. With the killing of black men, women and children and the increased violence against innocent hard-working people by whites in a stolen country where I was born has made me jaded, hurt, and angry.

The writing has been on the walls for a long time, when your identity has already been stripped from my ancestors and now right after right is being stripped from educated black people by mediocre people on a power trip who see their way of life slipping away from them is just too much. Not one black person has ever resulted into the violence that was January 6th and the fact that the people in office were and are complicit in their action is just baffling.

So, on June 23rd, me and my children, after selling everything we had, with the exception of two suitcases a piece board a plane to Merida, Mexico in the Yucatan. Getting on that plane was the scariest thing I have ever done with my children in tow. But the alternative and trauma of staying was the truest motivation I could ever think of. I have often stated that as a mother in 2021, I should not have the same fears as my grandmother in 1949 Jim Crow south had for my father. When you are afraid to call the police and EMS system to go check on your black son who is in the middle of a mental health crisis, then there is a real problem.

Stepping off the plane in an instant the target was instantly taken off our backs and we were finally able to breathe. The noise stopped and the air was fresher. Being here has taught me that there is more to life than the rat race that Americans are burdened with. The cost-of-living, medical cost and just overall the quality of life is better. I see why most Mexicans do go to America to work and send their money back. I’m able to retire at 50 instead of working myself to death. I no longer must I deal with the racism or walking around with in a perpetual state of PTSD. No longer do I have to fear my daughter being outside playing or my son going for an evening jog.

This move has shown me that the American dream is just a bunch of gaslighting. I truly hope that sometime soon that black people will wake up and make a mass migration away from the place of so much pain and anguish. History is repeating itself and it’s going to get a lot worst before it will ever get better. The voting rights are being taken away, the history is being changed to favor the oppressor and to erase the oppressed and disenfranchised. And for those who say that I sound as if I hate America, you’re wrong. I hate what America stands for because it is not the pursuit of happiness but building on the backs of those who they think have no voice.

As a black American, I’m sad I had to leave the only shores I have ever known, but also, I am happy that I have been welcomed into a new home with opened arms, where there the media doesn’t profit off of the blood of someone who looks like me, being shot down by those who have sworn to protect and serve me. This is not a piece on anti -American sentiment but merely a wakeup call to America as a whole, not everyone can afford to make the move and when you keep backing people into a corner they will eventually fight back.

I’m fortunate to be able to live differently, to be able to wake up in peace and not pieces.