We Wear the Mask
in Charleston, which provides a reminder of the commercial hub built on their backs and with their lives, sits less than one mile from the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. Charleston, by its mere existence and geographic history, is a zone of Black death. In this essay, I write about the significance of events that occurred on June 17, 2015, initiated by the massacre of nine Americans who had been worshipping at a mid week Christian service in Charleston, South Carolina, in relation to the process of forgiveness. This process operates in relation to and is enacted upon the state of everyday violence/everyday state violence that the North American racial landscape has maintained through imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy. The essay is necessarily embedded in a Black feminist and antiracist standpoint of identity, positionality, and relationality in order to achieve an understanding of place, subjectivity, and temporality. I am particularly interested in critically engaging the role of forgiveness in Black historical memory and in spatial politics that inform Black lives. Finally, I provide current possibilities for moving towards redemption liberation, racial justice, and healing. We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties.