Birthing Black Lives Matter: A Meditation On Staying Woke

Much of the Black Lives Matter movement is, understandably, focused on death and specifically the premature death of, often unarmed, black women, men, and children due to police violence. Beyond police violence, premature death afflicts black bodies throughout the lifespan due to health disparities, microaggressions, and simply living while black in a nation whose legal system and social institutions continuously fail to register black people as full citizens.