Daughter, I wonder on days like this about the
world that I will leave you, about the things you
will be forced to see as normal, because it will
be all you’ve ever known. I wonder some days
if the world is still capable of change,
if the concept of evolution can stop
being a debate topic, and start applying to
social progress. If the survival
of the fittest didn’t have to be those
individuals who can climb the ladder highest,
but can become the ideas that
fit the nation we actually have before us
instead of the one we pretend
we can ignore. I am left to wonder if this
country is still capable of self-awareness,
of noticing the color of its skin isn’t white
anymore. I pray there will come a day
when a black mother, a Muslim mother,
and a white mother can lay down
with the same peace that their children
will come home tonight,
instead of laying with one eye open, watching
the phone, watching the news.
How long do we hold our breath waiting for one week
to go by without another addition to the body count that
only Facebook is willing to tally? How long do we wait idly
as outrage becomes a passive feeling, one more
news report to comment on? How many more
need to die before we decide to make their deaths
no longer in vain? I pray for you to live in a day in age
where the most meaningful commentary on the criminal
justice system isn’t Zootopia, but is instead academic and
social conversation that you get to take part in.
I wonder if anger will
still pour out of pulpits and politics
to poison the rivers of information,
if there will come a day that fear
does not continuously seep into the roots
of our rhetoric. I hope that “those people”
ceases to be a meaningful denomination, and that
“We the people,” can stand to see all men
created equal, all women too. I wonder
if someday I can make equal salary to my male
counterparts, if someday I can yell loud enough
to be heard and be taken seriously so you don’t have
to suffer the indignity of hearing “it’s because you’re a woman,”
But more importantly, I wonder, with my stomach in my
throat, what world it will be when you, my daughter,
dress your daughter for school and say “Be safe,”
on the first day of second grade. I wonder if I will
be able to live with myself if there still has to be
fear in your eyes, teaching my teenage
granddaughter that to walk the street
is to be at risk for being raped. Tell me
please, when I will be able to hold my head up
and be seen as equal, because today a man
runs for president who believes my body
matters more than my mind. I pray that
our daughters are no longer taught that to be beautiful,
a strained forced falsified skin deep concept
is worth burning their self-worth
on the alter of industry. Now tell me please
that there will be a day that these things
are unthinkable and tell me please that this day
is when my daughter learns to vote,
not the reason that she has to.
