For those unaware, there is a concept of the digital slave trade following the advancement of the digital world. Several platforms are selling the NFT of black individuals as meta slaves. Individuals not limited to George Floyd, black children, etc. I cannot fake being surprised at more proof of how deeply rooted racism is. Selling NFT's of George Floyd and black children as slaves is not ignorance. It is blatant hate recycling a foundation for a racial war.
What are the chances of creating a world that does not recycle a violent history against black individuals? Even digitally?
Stumbling on this concept of the digital slave trade was a trigger. It reminded me of a memory detailing the last time I was triggered similarly.
The date was January 2018
Location: Vienna, Austria.
A lovely elder lady hosted us: me and two other white women my age. One of them was a white girl who often compared her experience to mine because she was born in South Africa. The other white girl was a wealthy white only daughter who carried herself like she had been on a pedestal all her life.
There were two rooms available for the three of us: a double room and a single room. I hoped my color would bring me the privilege of a single room, but I was not the only one. The rich white girl felt obligated to the single room too. I was not sharing a room with the microaggressions of being constantly compared to white women. In the end, we concluded neither of us should get the single room, so the other South African white girl did.
My choice proved to have been the best option until one night.
On that night, we were two sides of American history lying on the same bed.
Black and White.
Slavery and freedom.
The hustle and generational wealth.
It could be that she spent the whole day idolizing 1500 acres of land in her family for several generations at the expense of the historical implications that comes with a white person in America keeping up to 1500 acres of land for generations.
I went to sleep that night thinking about the blood, sweat, and handwork of black Individuals whose generations are yet to enjoy the financial benefit of their ancestors' work.
Trump is president, it is a regular day, and he attempted to pass another atrocity as law. We think it will not give because Trump is a global joke, but his supporters have already started acting on his proposed notion. The notion is simple. Trump suggested that white individuals take back their power by capturing every black person around them and enslaving them.
Naturally, most people did not give such a proposal a lot of thought; many even laughed at the idea until the headlines started to cover more and more worldwide stories, resulting in brutal violence. I wondered what this meant for people in interracial situations?
I wondered if they were luckier or more fucked?
It was only a matter of time before the racist movement reached Vienna, and there I was with a white girl who had a generational wealth of 1500 hundreds acres of land.
We were standing across from each other, guarded.
I looked at her like I was not to be tested, and she looked at me like I was soon about to be. "don't you dare," I muttered under my breath.
Her phone rang, she picked up to receive what seemed like a backup confirmation.
After which, she grabbed my wrist, and I woke up.
**
I woke up to the white girl awake, both our heads slightly tilted up from our pillows. She was facing and staring at me, holding my wrist up from the bed. I stared at my wrist in her hands and back at her. We stared at each other, confused, as she slowly released the firm grip on my wrist. I asked why she grabbed my wrist from the bed. She explained that she was having a bad dream, which I immediately asked about, but she claimed to have forgotten.
Till date,
I wonder if we had the same dream.
I wonder if our dreams carried our fears about each other
I wonder if it was a coincidence that she grabbed my wrist in my dream, her dream, and reality at the same time.
I wonder if her dreams were haunted by the fears of her ancestors who spend their afterlife looking over their backs, fearful of reaping all they sowed.
Nonetheless, we were just two sides of history sharing a room from that moment on.
Nothing more.
What are the chances of a world that does not recycle a violent history against black individuals? Especially where it is yet to acknowledge the generational consequences of a violent history against black individuals?
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