Honest and thought provoking as so much of you writing is.

This 'blackness that exists as a cage' of which you speak, is a venomous and vile construct that pervades too many minds. Yet as I read your worthy article I am plagued by the image of the canary in the cage carried down the coal mine. Within the cage it serves its base purpose, ensuring oxygen is present, regardless of the restrictions that crush the essence of the canary. It chirps merrily.

If the cage door were to be cast open would the canary flee? If it should flee does it lose purpose? Does it find purpose? Can it only find purpose if it wears the bars of the cage as a medal of validity from which to lament and in doing so deny the depth of opportunity lying before it by grasping freedom? Should the canary like a snake shed its skin and embrace new perceptions not those saddled through its barred past? It will remain the same valued being, it need not deny what it is, yet it may move toward a new, hopefully greater, freedom rather than using the crutch of injustice's past bars that will hobble its flight.

Perhaps I am too abstract and not as concise as you, I see you only as human who happens to be a gifted writer and thinker.

Always a pleasure to read the honesty of your words. K