Shh...

I'm waiting for a rage that isn't coming. You would think I would feel angry.

Instead it's just utter heartbreak. That deep, empty-hole-in-the-soul, kind of heartbreak. The kind caused by a type of disappointment that will never be recovered or repaired.

After a year of participating in a public leadership fellowship and a year at the service of students, appearing as the shining example of democratic leadership, I find myself struggling to believe in something that just continues to disappoint me.

All these years I have been taught to believe in a system of beliefs that says that the minority is protected, that the collective opinion will somehow resolve itself and equalize everything, that wrongs will find a way to be corrected. Yet, all I keep seeing is act after act of this democratic public that does everything it can to oppress the minority and to perpetuate any inequities that can be exploited.

Someone needs to show me, and I mean really show me, what has changed in all these decades. Slums are still starving people to death, in the shadows of wealth and capital. Anyone who is different is still being forced to hide, pretend, and suffer a silent shame. Color still determines who receives help and who doesn't.

I'm not angry.
I can't feel the anger anymore. After years of pretending that I wasn't disappointed and pretending things will be better, I've learned to suppress whatever feelings I have.

I'm tired of patience-- of holding in frustration, of waiting until the next day for things to improve. Patience didn't get anyone anywhere. The impatient-- the ones who would stay up all night looking for an answer, the ones who hungered for something more than what was given to them-- they are the ones who succeed and the ones who shape the world.

Maybe if we, the silenced, the oppressed, the separate-but-maybe-not-quite-equal, stop being patient we will actually get somewhere.