I wrestle with it. It keeps me up at night. I struggle to put it into words. To assign it a voice and a depth of meaning. Like a Mama bear pacing in front of her cave in some moments. Like an obligation I do not know how to quite carry. A spiraling into the unknown.

I swing between complete responsibility, wrestling to discern maturity during full disclosure, and an “it’s beyond my grasp” deflation. This unknown people becoming known. Because some white people showed up.

How does one portray them? How can I explain them? Things I wrestle with about their culture that I’m still processing, sometimes aloud. Things I admire. Overwhelming lessons. Overwhelming obligations and responsibilities.

All while walking on a thin line. How can I keep them from becoming a stereotype? They’re not just faces to push a platform. Faces to represent a statement they never made.

What would their mother think? That baby who could be portrayed as helpless that she has nursed through the first two years of life as her utter prize. Her long awaited miracle. What would his father think seeing his son be portrayed as desperate? That son he is intentionally raising to be a man.

Tread lightly, beloved, as you tell a story that is not your own. Step carefully and carry the responsibility well as many may unknowingly place an agenda on their shoulders, words in their mouths, or an ideal written on their faces that they would never say.

He is N’s boy. F’s baby girl. F and Y’s precious sister who my girls run to hug from across the field. They are my precious D and L who pushed past my foreign ways with giggles and I always just so happen to find sitting right beside me each week. He’s A’s boy who always looks after his brother, and holds his hands out to the little ones to make sure they know there’s a seat for them. They and countless others. They are real, live, and utterly amazing people.

People with voices.

People with stories.

People with hopes.

They are ours because they’ll have us, not because we claim them.

I wrestle with it. And I think we all should. Because they’re not props. They are people. A bright future. And we have a responsibility to them, whether we know them personally or not. They’re not a status. They’re not a symbol. A poster child for a lesson they never intended to teach.

 

Tread lightly, beloved.

Step carefully and carry the responsibility well.

There’s always so much more to learn. Growth to be had.

(She reminds herself at 2 a.m.).

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How can it even be put into words?