“It is a peculiar cruelty to demand extraordinary proof from those who have endured ordinary injustice.” My pain does not require cross-examination
“It is a peculiar cruelty to demand extraordinary proof from
those who have endured ordinary injustice.”
My pain does not require cross-examination to be real.
My humanity is not pending approval.
1. “It wasn’t about race.”
Expanded insight:
This phrase often functions as an eraser. It asks people to ignore patterns, history, and lived experience. It reframes systemic realities as random misfortune.
Quote:
James Baldwin once observed that the denial of reality is itself a form of violence. When truth is rejected, harm is allowed to breathe.
Affirmation:
I do not gaslight myself to preserve someone else’s comfort.
I trust what history and lived experience have taught me.
2. Victim character assassination
Expanded insight:
The focus shifts from “What was done?” to “What kind of person were they?” Humanity gets replaced with interrogation.
Quote:
“It is the victim who is asked to explain the crime.” — A truth echoed across generations of injustice.
Affirmation:
Harm done to me is not justified by my imperfections.
My humanity is not conditional.
3. Language dilution
Expanded insight:
Softened language reduces emotional urgency. Brutality sounds bureaucratic. Violence becomes administrative.
Quote:
George Orwell warned that political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.
Affirmation:
I name harm in words that honor its impact.
Clarity is not cruelty.
4. Criminalization of survival
Expanded insight:
Fear responses, trauma reactions, or attempts at self-protection are reframed as aggression or defiance.
Quote:
“When you’re Black, your pain is often mistaken for threat.” — A lived truth spoken in many Black communities.
Affirmation:
My survival responses are human responses.
Self-protection is not a crime.
5. Entertainment framing
Expanded insight:
Black suffering becomes replayed footage, debate fuel, viral spectacle. Pain is consumed rather than mourned.
Quote:
“To be turned into a spectacle is another layer of violation.”
Affirmation:
My suffering is not public property.
My pain deserves reverence, not replay.
6. False equivalence
Expanded insight:
“Yes, but everyone…” flattens disparities. It blurs scale, frequency, and structural causes.
Quote:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere — but he never claimed injustice was evenly distributed.
Affirmation:
Acknowledging disproportion is not division.
Truth does not require dilution.
7. Empathy gaps
Expanded insight:
Identical harm produces unequal outrage. Some victims are mourned. Others are debated.
Quote:
“Not all tears are permitted equal weight in the public square.”
Affirmation:
My pain is not less tragic.
My life is not less grievable.
8. Delayed accountability
Expanded insight:
Time becomes a shield. Outrage fades. Evidence “complicates.” Justice cools.
Quote:
“Justice too long delayed is justice denied.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
Affirmation:
Delay does not redefine harm.
Time passing does not equal healing.
9. Burden of proof inflation
Expanded insight:
Black victims must appear flawless to receive empathy. Normal human complexity becomes disqualifying.
Quote:
“She was not required to prove harm.
She was only required to be human.
Black women are so rarely granted that simplicity.”
“When harm happens to Black women, the investigation often begins with:
‘But what did she do?’”
Affirmation:
I do not need perfection to deserve protection.
My humanity stands without performance.
My pain does not require cross-examination to be real.
My humanity is not pending approval.
10. Historical amnesia
Expanded insight:
Current violence is treated as disconnected from centuries of racial terror, exclusion, and policy-driven harm.
Quote:
“History is not the past. It is the present wearing older clothes.”
Affirmation:
I refuse narratives that sever cause from consequence.
Memory is resistance.
Violence is not only an act.
Minimization is an aftershock.
Dismissal is a second injury.
affirmation:
I am not imagining patterns.
I am not exaggerating impact.
I am not required to shrink truth.