Find Your Voice

Black Man in America, Find Your Voice:

I escaped the violations unharmed but I remember how each occurrence made me feel. Somehow, we silence ourselves when we should be our most vocal but cling to memories unreturned. I have a voice, we all have a voice, but brokenness has a way of creating doubt and we lose focus trying to mask things internally.

“I was afraid to finally be heard because people have always failed to listen, really listen, to me.” I remember writing this quote as I was preparing to go away for college. It was time for me to live on my own, away from family and friends, a new area, new living quarters, and I could walk around a corner full of people where no one knew me. This was my moment to re-event myself, to make people proud. Then it hit me. The irony of that quotes that makes me upset is that even after all these years, and I had some amazing years, not much from that quote has changed.

Have I lost you? Well let me explain. When children can’t speak up for themselves they tend to shy away or shut down. Some even react in a manner to gain someone’s attention. We learn at a very young age that a mind is a terrible thing to waste, but who takes time to explore the minds of young children? Who takes time to listen or pay attention to non-verb

al cues? Nowadays, we label toddlers and children and speak into the universe what’s wrong with then automatically propose that this is how they will turn out. Some of the people that ‘think’ they know really aren’t equipped to make a diagnosis. For me, I was that little kid. I was the one that was overlooked but labeled, and I had the potential just as anyone else. I was that kid that had a voice but I would shy away because it was easier to feel invisible than to accept that I felt unwanted.

What was my label? What was yours? At a young age I knew the power of words. I knew that saying anything could make someone feel a certain way: Say something nice, they smile. Say something bad, it hurt their feelings. See, the basics. But I was never taught how to speak proudly about my passions or how I felt in each situation. I was told to shut up because my voice didn’t matter. I was told not to ask questions because I didn’t matter. Where’s the correlation?

There is still that six-year-old label on him that lingers to speak up, but he’s still afraid that he’s still invisible, even when he’s his most vulnerable. He never lost his identity because he never found it. He didn’t give up on his dreams, he just stopped dreaming. My voice was taken because people failed to listen to me. How can a six-year-old mask such a feeling? Label off.

At That Moment:

I found that the journey of life taught me a lot when I decided to take the label off myself. NOW I find living life remarkable. I found that through my own observations and the life I have now, my invisibility wasn’t a beacon for escape; it was a creation for hope. My six-year old desire for validation, for acceptance, or to be heard, was a childhood memory that was untold. I don’t believe my childhood upbringing could allow my NOW to surface. I can’t continue to hide behind something that NOW requires. I can’t make excuses NOW for who I was when I can control who I am NOW. As growth occurs without choice, our surroundings change. Our minds advance. Our thoughts are different. Our beings start to make sense.

Before you silence a child, think about the message you are giving off. Think about how they are internalizing their freedom of opinion and your closed mindedness for a resolve. Think about your uplifting correction to a question that might help this young person thrive. Think about how they might shut down or shy away from saying anything else. How do you encourage your child to be the best they can be? How do you listen to children’s out-cry for help if they can’t use their words? How do you raise that child to stand on their own two feet to accept and appreciate what stares back at them in the mirror? I lost hope in those mirror sessions because I knew who I looked like, but I didn’t know who I was; even as I was becoming.

My black voice is creating platforms starting with AT THAT MOMENT. My black voice could spot those who looked like me and unmask them to help them find their identity. All I did was notice and reacted. My black voice was inherited by novelist and activist like James Baldwin’s and Richard Wright’s. I poured myself into their words. I can go further and emphasis on people like Marcus Garvey and Myles Munroe and W.E.B Du Bois, people who had impactful voices to lead and challenge the mind. My black voice is serving as a big brother mentoring other black youth that couldn’t find their voices and needed someone to understand and believe in them.  My black voice is LOUD because I don’t ever want to feel invisible again. I wanted to give power to what people labeled me as: a[void].

-ReggLaw