1st, May 2025
- Black Lawyer
- May 1
- 2 min read
The Word He Could Not Carry
Filed under: Sacred Disappointments
Dearest Diary,
A couple of years prior, the court performed an autopsy.
Not on a body, but on the dying embers of dignity — and found none.
They were married once.
A Black woman, luminous and certain as sunrise.
A white man, loud with borrowed importance.
Together, they bore children —brown-skinned miracles, carrying the weight of histories they were too young to name.
And yet, before the ink on the divorce petition dried,the husband — father, protector, steward —stood accused, and admitted,to calling his own children the word the world once used to chain their ancestors.
The N-word.
Ugly, uncoiled, and flung across their tiny bodies like a shackle they never asked to wear.
Diary, he admitted it without remorse.
He explained it, as one might explain the weather.“I was angry,” he said, as if rage were baptismal.
The courtroom grew heavy.
Not with shouting — but with that ancient silence familiar to all melanated people:the silence of knowing you have seen the truth,and the truth will not save you.
Arguments were made.
Exhibits were entered.
Tears, unsanctioned, slipped quietly into tissue and sleeve.
And then, the ruling came.
For a moment, the weight of history threatened to tip the scales again —toward the familiar disappointment, toward the cold comfort of "technicalities" and "neutralities."
But this time, the weight did not bow.
The court found the word was not a mere slip of the tongue, but a weapon sharpened by centuries, aimed at the small and the sacred.
Custody was granted to the mother.
Not because she was perfect.
Not because the law suddenly found a soul.
But because the spirit of those children —their brown fists to brown skies —demanded to be shielded.
Diary, it was not triumph.It was not justice, not really.
But it was, perhaps, survival —documented, notarized, and whispered into the bloodline once more:
You are not what they call you.
The children will know, one day, that their lineage is forged not by the mouths of cowards, but by the marrow of kings and queens who endured oceans and fires and still rose.
They will know the word he used cannot bind them.Because even broken tongues cannot define a soul written in stardust.
I remain as ever, Poised. Positioned. Permanently Unbroken.
Disclaimer: All events, names, and proceedings in this entry are fictionalized for satirical and reflective purposes. The spirit, however, is devastatingly real.
Tag someone who carries power in their skin and history in their breath.
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