We Have Failed you…An Open letter to the Spirit of Roy Jones...
by Yolo
News Item:
According to WPIX-TV, Pedro Jones, 20, of South Hampton has been charged with first-degree manslaughter for hitting Roy A. Jones so hard with his fists that the infant went into cardiac arrest and died at a local hospital. Police say Jones said he was “trying to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl.”
Dear Roy,
I am so sorry.
We collectively have failed you.
Roy, we created the environment that allowed what he did to you to happen. We sat and still sit, in our homes and walk our streets each day, feeding the spirit of homophobia and sexist gender roles that provided the psychological space for what Pedro did to you to occur.
Everyday in some way still, we say how “men do this” and “girls do this”. We still punish boys who embrace fluidity in their movements. We still penalize young women who carry assertive self love within their stride; and we label as “freaks” those who express life beyond the socially constructed biological sex and gendered continuum.
We have forgotten that spirit knows no gender. We have forgotten that spirit is ultimately all that we are. And because we have forgotten, and because to many of those who remember have not spoken out, you have lost your life within this world.
We have failed you.
And we have failed each other. Each time we typecast a being’s expression based on gender, or race, or class, or ability or anything else. We have failed each other.
I wish i could say now that you are gone, that something will dramatically change. I wish i could say that the thought of your brown & red body and the pictures left of your smile, would incite us to cast off the chains of gender and hate.I wish I could say that all of us here are wise enough to know, that what Pedro did to you, was only an external manifestation of what someone did to him, and to what he has done to himself. I wish we could find the compassion to call him to transform and not just rot away; a fate that ultimately changes nothing and does little to help him see what he has done….
News Item:
According to WPIX-TV, Pedro Jones, 20, of South Hampton has been charged with first-degree manslaughter for hitting Roy A. Jones so hard with his fists that the infant went into cardiac arrest and died at a local hospital. Police say Jones said he was “trying to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl.”
Dear Roy,
I am so sorry.
We collectively have failed you.
Roy, we created the environment that allowed what he did to you to happen. We sat and still sit, in our homes and walk our streets each day, feeding the spirit of homophobia and sexist gender roles that provided the psychological space for what Pedro did to you to occur.
Everyday in some way still, we say how “men do this” and “girls do this”. We still punish boys who embrace fluidity in their movements. We still penalize young women who carry assertive self love within their stride; and we label as “freaks” those who express life beyond the socially constructed biological sex and gendered continuum.
We have forgotten that spirit knows no gender. We have forgotten that spirit is ultimately all that we are. And because we have forgotten, and because to many of those who remember have not spoken out, you have lost your life within this world.
We have failed you.
And we have failed each other. Each time we typecast a being’s expression based on gender, or race, or class, or ability or anything else. We have failed each other.
I wish i could say now that you are gone, that something will dramatically change. I wish i could say that the thought of your brown & red body and the pictures left of your smile, would incite us to cast off the chains of gender and hate.I wish I could say that all of us here are wise enough to know, that what Pedro did to you, was only an external manifestation of what someone did to him, and to what he has done to himself. I wish we could find the compassion to call him to transform and not just rot away; a fate that ultimately changes nothing and does little to help him see what he has done….
Read Full Letter @ Selah
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