What do I say?

Lately I have been struggling with how to respond to recent incidents of police brutality in African American communities.  But all these atrocities have done is render me mute.  We live in day and age where anyone can fancy themselves a writer and feel compelled to do so on any number of issues.  We have social media to thank for that.  Because of this I often find myself at crossroads between being relevant and being honest.  Although in a perfect world these should be synonymous, social media tends to skew our perceptions of what is genuinely felt and what is reactionary especially when race is involved. I have scrolled through countless memes and angry comments about white police and comments on why black lives matter.  Although I am in full agreement with most of what I see, I am beginning to wonder about their effectiveness and how I might be effective as a writer.   I am reminded of a recent interview with Toni Morrison in which she stated that she would like to be viewed as an American writer and not just an African American one.  And since she is both a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning author she has certainly earned a right to that nomenclature. Many of the rest of us however, might have a ways to go. But despite her title I am sure that she would agree that the recent tragedies in Black communities transcend race and regardless of whether she is an African American writer or other, she would still be compelled to comment.  For me writers like Morrison represent on a larger scale what I feel every time injustices happen in black communities.  I can only imagine the pressure they might feel to say something authentic and relevant.   I have only recently become comfortable with simply calling myself a writer.  The African American part carries with it a tension that often times is hard to articulate.  But one way I can describe it is by the way my peers reacted the first time I tried skiing.  One memorable response was "Why are you doing that?" You know black people don't ski."  I often hear that voice in my head when I sit down to write, wondering if I am wandering down that road that black folks aren't supposed to go again.  Or I find myself wondering if I am not reacting to incidents like the recent attacks on young black men in a way that is acceptable.  And In moments when I might be taking myself far too seriously I can almost feel the glaring eyes of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin and Maya Angelou baring down on me and urging me to take action.  In response I ask, what could I possibly say that hasn’t been said already?  As a writer my greatest obstacle has always been my reluctance to engage in the most pervasive conversations. Given the way that social media attacks most issues and non-issues with such swiftness and aggression, I often find myself wondering if anything I have to say has any relevance at all. Is it pompous of me to be easily bored by the platitudes that are plastered all over Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr?  What words could I say that would not echo the feelings of every person of color in this country that has witnessed black people being killed with impunity?  Is there a word that I could pull from my lexicon that would make the conversation seem less reactionary, less cliché?  I realize that this is of course a luxurious problem to have.  I also realize that in many countries in the world to write about injustice could most certainly mean losing my hands, which is definitely one way to eliminate both the luxury and the cliché.   But since this is not my reality I have been given the enviable position of shouting from the highest mountaintop or fastest laptop my opinion of racist policemen and the racist system that supports them.  The only problem is so has everyone else.   So the question becomes, how long will it take before the collective outrage of all of the tweeters, Instagrammers, Tumblrs and Bloggers becomes a fad?  I strive to be optimistic and I want to believe that a real social movement is upon us, so I will engage in the conversation.  Consider this my two cents.  I am looking to you now, all of my brothers and sisters in the land of social media to show me the way from here.