ARE WE LIVING, OR JUST EXISTING?
When I think of this question, I think of it on a personal level. Am I living or just existing? I also think of it on a collective cultural level. Are we living or just existing? As a black person, some experiences are relevant to the black community, and, as a man, others are relevant to the human experience.
My personal perspective on whether I am living or just existing?
Late in the night, I watched a Tyler Perry film. The family that preys. The mother asked her friend, "Are you living or just existing?" For the last 12 hours, I have been asking myself. Am I living or just existing? What is the difference between living and existing? What have I been doing all my life, and have I really accomplished anything?
Naturally, when we reflect on our lives, I think we start thinking of our Childhood, challenges, family history, and trauma. The idea is to gain a clear snapshot of who we are and how we got to where we are now. I have never done a great job at talking about myself in videos where I have multiple viewpoints in my mind all thinking at once. Writing gives me the space to reflect on my complex feelings.
Have you ever been put on the spot and had to answer a personal question? After sitting alone and reflecting, you answer truthfully and realize it may have been partially true. Over the years of experience and growth, I have come to realize that we can only be as honest with others as we are with ourselves.
The first thing I learned in life was that I could not be myself. This was brutally taught to me by my aunt's boyfriend, whom I just met that day, who used the two minutes he was alone with us to violently slam a three-year-old repeatedly to the ground, searing the question in my mind why am I such a f ing faggot. As I think back to that moment, I realize how trauma set in my chest when the attack was interrupted by my aunt returning to retrieve her wallet. I stopped breathing for 5 seconds or so, and in shock, not knowing how to respond, what to think, or even the bombardment of degrading feelings that were imposed on me. I only mentioned the event at the police station when the officer came into the office to ask what happened. My eyes were glued to the ground in shame as I started to explain, and broke down in tears, unable to fully explain everything. The officer's rage would later become my guide as he led us into the area where my aunt's now ex-boyfriend was in a cage fit for a large dog with his hands handcuffed behind his back, connected to the chains around his legs. It was a relief to see justice served as the officer took him out of the cage and began violently slamming him to the ground repeatedly while taunting him to pick on someone his own size. After we left, I was told to forget about it, and for years, I repressed the thought of what happened, not realizing how that moment would play a large role in how I showed up for years into my adult life.
A father was not mentioned until I was between 4 and 5 years old. It was weird to notice my brothers and sisters going to their dad's home and never hearing anything about my father. After mustering up the courage to ask my mom who my father is, her response made the perplexing questions in my mind all the more complicated. She stated that I am your mother and your father. I recall backing away, not wanting to pressure her, although I could feel there was a hurtful experience from her surrounding my birth.
It wasn't long after this question that I was taken to see a man in Jail who said he was my father. Within the same year, another man came over and said that he was my father and wanted to take me to see his mom, and another woman came over and said he was my grandma and wanted to take me to see my father. Now with three male fathers and a mom as a father, this shut me down because there was no safe space to talk about any of this. What I weirdly noticed was that when my mother was notified that Terry, the second man I met, was coming over, she immediately disappeared from the house. This was an act by my grandmother and aunt because they apparently knew something I did not at the time.
When I got in the car with my new grandmother and my mom's mom to see the third father, Kenny, I blurred out that I have three fathers now. My mom's mother quickly shushed me, but later I would learn that the cat was out of the bag and she did not care. She thought that her son having a son would make him more responsible and that this would be a good thing for my life to have a father surrounding the circumstances. The greens became the family I knew. Aunts and uncles who loved me and spending time with them, and my cousin brought me a lot of joy. I only saw Terry a second time. Although my aunt and grandma swore that he was my birth father, I continued to have Kenny as my father and the Greens as my family. The man from Jail, I only saw him once. This secret and a mound of unanswered questions would continue to live on in my mind.
Is it possible for a person to live when the percentage of their Unconscious self is greater than their consciousness of themselves?
As I try to define what it means to live or exist, I begin to form the idea that to live is to be one with oneself, and that we exist when our unconsciousness guides most of our actions. During these perplexing times in my life, when many unanswered questions were roaming in my mind, the father I leaned on was Christ. I trusted him. I believed in his ways; I even saw him as my role model, someone I wanted to be like. I believed in following Christ, and I thought I would stay a virgin until I was married. Now here I am, 44 and never married.
Fear guided me that if I were ever married, divorce would be the worst thing that could ever happen. Not seeing any successful marriages led me to believe that it was more impossible and that women were complex beings. I also believed that a woman is to be respected and not looked upon as just a sexual object for pleasure. When Purbity took over my mind, the sexual experience was all I could think about. As I begin this exploration of my sexuality, some were with women and some with men. Throughout my life, I was not afforded a healthy male intimate relationship for fear of appearing like a f ing faggot. These programs were already wired in my brain, operating without my knowledge. During this time, I believe I was only existing.
When we are more worried about what others think, it is impossible to live truly, and we therefore exist.
I had no consciousness of the feelings my shadow self projected. I was a people pleaser, living to make others happy at the expense of my own joy, neglecting my own needs. I was existing. As I grew older, I realized I was begging for friendship. Most of my elementary, middle, and high school experience was without friends. Right after I turned 25, I moved to China, where making friends became a lot easier. They were open, considerate, and friendly as I was. Not that everyone I met was perfect, but the experience and connections were much more intimate and sincere. I had more healthy male friendships than ever in the States. I fell behind on my visa requirements and had to leave for a year. Maybe out of shame, I never returned. Technically, I was an illegal alien who was treated with respect in the process of returning home. The respect and dignity China showed during this process is how I wish America would treat those it is sending home. It wasn't until several years after returning to America that I became more aware of my Shadow self. Something so far back in my Childhood shaped how I showed up. What brought me to this realization was seeing a pattern that kept showing up and did not reflect how I wanted to. It felt like being trapped in a life you don't want. When I began to explore the past trauma and hurt from my past, it brought up a lot of negative feelings about myself. I felt disgusting, unwanted, undesired, like nobody, and why would people want to make friends with me? This program was actively playing in my subconscious, limiting me from truly living life.
Collectively, culturally, are we living or just existing?
My trauma mentioned is only a drop of water in the ocean of trauma experienced by the collective black community. I often think to myself, if I were a black man during slavery, and the enslaver decided to take my wife and use her for pleasure, or sell her, or take my child and feed it to alligators for sport, how would I feel? Can you imagine being a mother who has given birth to a child, and that child is taken away and fed to an alligator, used for pleasure, or eaten? Imagine your husband hung from a tree or beaten in a town square in front of everyone to ensure we would live in fear and stay in line with what the enslaver wanted. Injected with diseases treated like trash and disgusting animals. When I look at the Black American Heritage flag, these are the things I am reminded of. I am also reminded of our triumph over this dark history and our resilience in loving and forgiving despite it.
In today's time, it is unimaginable that we could send our child to school for them to return home having been rape by a white man who knew there was nothing you, as a black, could do, or your child to be called the N word. You can only tell them to ignore it, to look outside your window to find a cross burning in your yard, maybe your house set on fire, or to walk at night in a sundown town to be captured and hung from a tree. Actually, we now see a rise in black people being hanged from a tree, and killed in mysterious ways.
Reported by the Crimson Report :
SCOPE AND FINDINGS
Between 2000 and 2025, JULIAN identified more than 70 modern-day lynchings across the seven-state region, with Mississippi reporting the highest number. In addition, the study cataloged numerous hate crimes resulting in death and suspicious deaths where racial or identity-based motives were plausible but not officially recognized. In many of the cases discussed, especially in Mississippi, JULIAN is revealing previously unavailable details, and the number is higher considering the lynchings that have occurred in 2026.
You can view the full report at julianfreedom.org
President Trump. Recently, the following was stated. "They want to steal your money for reparations. They want to basically punish you for crimes you never committed for crimes that happened hundreds of years ago. He went further by saying to give money to the people who hate our country. I have run into a larger number of blacks who have always proclaimed their love for America and that they would not want to be in any other country. Constance Cater provided a great explanation of Trump's statement.
I would add to her statement that while those at present living did not do some of the vile things that were done to blacks in history. While Trump himself has played a role in segregation and inequality, there are those alive today who were also participants in the injustices done to blacks. Racists want to have the same ownership that was once held of blacks, but do not want to take ownership for what is due to the black community. I can't even begin to process how a country commissioner Jennings could lament that because he and racist people are not allowed to hang blacks, that we have more rights than they do. Is this man serious? We have more rights than they do because he can't string us up by a tree and get away with it.
Take a moment to process what they identify as right. The right to lynch blacks, the right to kill them, the right to rape them, the right to cannibalize them, and the right to own them.
Getting back to the question at hand, are we living or are we existing as black people in America? The parameters I would use to define living versus just existing differ from the personal to the collective level. On a personal level, I defined living as being in a greater state of self-consciousness, and that we exist when the subconscious has a greater hold on the individual. While on a collective level, I would define living as being in harmony not just with your own culture but also with your fellow citizens. While many may live prosperous lives, are they living or merely existing? The truth is that everyone will have their own definition of what living or existing may be, but beyond just prosperity, what do blacks deserve? What does any human on this earth deserve? We, humans deserve not to live in fear that because of our color, we are targeted by cops, harassed by racists, hanged in trees, killed by racists, and now targeted by a president who once said Black people love Trump and that He has the biggest vote with black people and that black people know a scam better than anybody and that they know what it is to be scammed???
President Trump described DEI programs as coercive and tyrannical during his 2025 address to Congress.
Excuse me! You want to stop the Tyranny of DEI?
1866 in May, was it not tyranny when white mobs and police officers killed 46 black residents, burned 100 homes, 12 schools, and 4 churches in Memphis, Tennessee?
1866 July, was it not tyranny when a white mob attacked black citizens when people gathered for a political meeting, killing 35 and wounding over 100 people in New Orleans?
1873 April, was it not tyranny when a white militia attacked black freedmen, killing between 83 and 150 people in Colfax, Louisiana?
1876 July, was it not tyranny when a white mob attacked a majority Black town, killing 7 people and looting the town in Hamburg, South Carolina?
1887 November, was it not tyranny when white vigilantes attacked black sugar workers, killing between 30 and 60 people in Thibodeaux, Louisiana?
1898 November, was it not tyranny when a heavily armed white mob overthrew the elected interacial government and destroyed black-owned properties, killing between 60 and 300 people in Wilmington, North Carolina?
1906 September, was it not tyranny when white mobs surged into black businesses, beating people and destroying properties while killing at least 27 people in Atlanta, Ga?
1908 August, was it not tyranny when a white mob of thousands attacked blacks, burning homes and businesses, driving thousands of blacks residents out of Springfield, IL?
1910 July, was it not tyranny when white residents attacked an unincorporated black town, killing black residents in Slocum, Texas?
1917 July, was it not tyranny when white mobs burned homes and shot black workers, killing over 100 people and leaving thousands homeless in East St. Louis, IL
1919 September, was it not tyranny when a white posse and federal troops attacked black sharecroppers who organized for better wages, killing an estimated 100-200 black people in Elaine, Arkansas?
1920 November, was it not tyranny when a white mob attacked residents attempting to vote, killing between 30 and 80 residents, burning most of the black-owned buildings in Ocoee, Florida?
1921 May, was it not tyranny when a white mob invaded black wall street buring 35 city blocks and killing up to 300 people in Tulsa, Oklahoma?
1923 January, was it not tyranny when white vigilantes burned down a predominantly black town and completely erased the town in Rosewood, FL?
From these thriving black towns alone, had they been unbothered, what would the state of these businesses look like in the black community? Thousands, if not millions, of jobs could have been created from these communities if they had not been bothered to support the black community's self-sufficiency. However, the hatred and tyranny of white mobs continued to destroy any resemblance to black success. After your government and white racist people destroyed our communities and leaders, they then added insult to injury by talking down on the black man's decapitated state. A state of existence created by you. While the white racist is so worried about their jobs being taken away, let's talk about the jobs and potential jobs that were violently taken and stolen from blacks. The systematic steps that not just white people but the American government has taken to suppress blacks have caused billions in loss and potential profits. When you say we did nothing to them, you are wrong; your very government, just as you are doing, is taking actions to suppress blacks. Trump's statement that he did more for black people than any other president, other than Abraham Lincoln, may be the scam that black people are used to experiencing.
Then some racists talk about black fatigue. I want to point out that we, blacks, are fatigued with your racism, your killing of black kids, injustices, your narcissism, your deception, your entitlement, your hatred, and most of all, your gaslighting. It has run its course, and no one in the world is buying it anymore.
This may be disappointing to you, and I know that you will work hard as a selfish child to continue your ways regardless. You are the sons of King James, who wrote the book of demonology. who set out to deface Christianity and colonize the world with a religion you do not truly believe. How can a KKK member be a Christian when Christ is a man of color? White racists have made a mockery of Christ. You are the reason people have lost faith in Christianity because of your false proclamation of him while being nothing but your father's/Satan's minions. There is nothing Christ-like in anyone who says that they hate someone because of their color. There is nothing Christlike in anyone who spews out hatred. Tell the truth and shame your father, you are of the devil, and there is no God in you.
How do black live in a system that has stacked the cards against them? How do blacks like where their children are being hanged by trees? How do we live in a system that has been trained to institute our oppression? How do we live when black men are constantly killed by police officers? How do we truly live in America when these injustices are rooted in the very fabric of America?
Will blacks ever be able to live in America and not have to worry about these problems? I do not believe so. This makes me believe that we will only exist in America and not truly live to our full glory, our freedom to exist without hatred and racism. There will always be a racist cop who treats a black person wrong in America. There will always be a racist in America looking for the opportunity to hang a black man or woman. The fighting back and forth will continue, and let's say that we defeat the current racist president. Another one will pop up later, and another one.
Many blacks and other Americans are leaving America because there is a realization of the dark, evil ways that are rooted in America and its operations. Whether in America or anywhere else in the world, I only wish that all people find a place where they are treated with respect and can become loving members of their communities. That all people are in a place where they are not treated unfairly because of their color. I don't believe the battle will ever stop in America, which is why I support Black Americans leaving to find a home where they will find peace and their color will not be a point of contention.
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