One Year Ago

The day was warm and sunny. It was like any other August day. I was preparing for my first semester of graduate school and decided to take a break from my preparation by scrolling through my Twitter timeline. There were the normal Twitter topics and jokes going on but, it wasn’t a normal day. The first tweet was that a someone’s friend was just murdered. The next was an image of a cop standing over a body. More tweets started flooding the timeline. I began clicking and scrolling to see what information I could find. What happened? Who is that? What is going on? Then he was identified. Michael “Mike” Brown, 18-years-old and unarmed. An officer (who was later identified as Darren Wilson) was standing over Michael. His body lay in the Missouri heat uncovered and bloodied. A crowd had formed. The police were more concerned about crowd control than moving Michael’s body. They let this young kid lay in the street, like a dog, for four hours. As the outrage grew police brought out K-9 units. It looked like a scene out of the Civil Rights Movement. I was glued to my Twitter account. Retweeting and reading all day and night. I was sick to my stomach.

The next day the images and videos became worse. I was glued to links streaming live video and saw what looked more like war. Tear gas, tanks, armored vehicles, police in riot gear with weapons I had only seen on battlefields. Except, this wasn’t Iraq or Afghanistan. This was Ferguson, Missouri in the United States of America. A country who prides itself on the words, “Liberty and Justice for All.” Well, unless you’re a black person living here. For ten whole nights I watched black people, some protestors, and some just standing in their own yards, be attacked by the very people who are sworn to protect and serve them. The National Guard was even  called to the city. Not to protect the people the police were attacking, but to protect the police. No one in that crowd was holding automatic weapons. No one in the crowd was wearing body armor. Yet, they were being protected while the people of their city were being brutalized. These violent acts did not go unnoticed. The world was watching.

I could barely pay attention during the work day. I was attached to my Twitter account. More so than I had ever been. I made sure every person who followed me was aware of what was going on. I even had a friend from undergrad reach out and say he was glad that I was keeping the story alive via my account. However, being so immersed in what was happening in Ferguson, was causing sleep to come slowly. There were nights that falling asleep meant I would see the faces of protestors running from tear gas. I could hear them screaming and yelling in my dreams.

That was one year ago. On August 9, 2014 the death of Michael “Mike” Brown became the straw that broke the camel’s back; it shook up the world. We know that Michael Brown wasn’t the first to be murdered because of the color of his skin. Eric Garner’s choke hold death happened a month before and countless other black men and women had been murdered prior to him. So what was it about Michael Brown’s murder that made our silent screams become much more public? Why, even after the world watched Eric Garner scream, “I can’t breathe” did the tide turn? I don’t know a solid answer to that question. What I do know is that I hear the words of Langston Hughes’ poem entitled, Warning. One of the lines of the poem reads, “…beware the day they change their mind…” and Michael Brown became the reason we did. His body laying in the street as if he were no more than trash, turned smoke into fire. And when the Grand Jury returned with the announcement that there would be no indictment against Darren Wilson, that fire that seemed to only have ignited in Ferguson, started to roar all over the country.

Since the death of Michael Brown there have been many more black men and women murdered. Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray,  Akai Gurley, Eric Harris, Sam DuBose, Sandra Bland, the Charleston Nine, and names I cannot even remember. That’s terrible. What makes it worse, is that nothing has seemed to change. Police are still trigger happy and abusive when interacting with black people. A fear as old as fire and rope still exists and went from being a private fear amongst the black community, to a public fear that is being ridiculed. We yell, “Black lives matter” and are met with, “No! All lives matter.” I want to say this because I’m not sure why it is such a hard concept to grasp. If all lives mattered, there would be no need to say that black lives matter. If all lives matter, then the police and white America wouldn’t treat us like we are animals. Being black in America is like standing in room, screaming as loud as you can, and no one even blinks. Being black in America means living in a place that sees you as nothing more than something to be feared, if you’re a man, or something to be sexualize if you’re a woman.

Unspoken rules of how black people have to live their lives became public when people finally started to listen. One would think that some understanding would develop. Yet, that hasn’t been the case. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of white people who are “woke” and stand in solidarity with all that is going on. I’m not speaking to them. I’m speaking to the ones who continually say, maybe he should have cooperated, maybe she should have put out her cigarette, he should have stopped walking. I’m talking to the ones who think the Confederate Flag is heritage and not hate. I’m talking to the ones who say all lives matter. And, don’t get me wrong, there are some black people out there who spout the same nonsense. To them I say, trust and believe, your cooperation won’t save your life. Stop thinking it will before it’s too late.

A year ago, the death of Michael Brown changed my life. I knew what I was going to study in graduate school the moment Trayvon Martin was murdered. Michael Brown, and every other person killed before and after him, solidified it. August 9, 2014 is a day I will never forget. I was changed forever. Even though there’s a new name to mourn every 28 hours, I’m a firm believer that black people will make it through. We always have. We can make a way out of no way, no matter the circumstance.

In the words of Kendrick Lamar, “Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon’ be alright!”

The Breaking Point

Writing is my release and it helps me clear my head. Whether people read it or not never concerned me but, my mental health has been greatly affected and I didn’t realize it until it was too late. I could barely bring myself to do this. That is how bad it has gotten for me. This has been heavy on my heart for months. One the reasons I have not written anything in a while is because this topic is all over the news and there are various blogs that do a better job at writing on this particular topic.  I’m sure by now you have figured out I’m talking about the numerous Black people who have been murdered by police. Every time the name of a new victim is announced, a part of my soul dies. All of these murders break my heart. One in particular, made me breakdown.

I was sitting on my couch watching MSNBC when I started scrolling through my Twitter timeline. I noticed immediately the name Eric Harris kept coming up as a hashtag. My heart started to race. I knew, before even clicking the hashtag, another Black man had been gunned down. I knew what the details would be, and still, I clicked. I still refuse to watch the video. I just can’t bring myself to do it. However, in reading the accounts of the story, the words, “fuck your breath” sent me from a state of nauseousness, to full out grief. I sat on my couch, alone, and cried. Robert Bates, the 73-year-old volunteer police officer, shot and killed Eric Harris. He claimed he was reaching  for his taser and did not realize it was his gun. What I fail to understand is how a police officer is unable to tell the difference between a loaded gun and a taser. They do not weigh the same nor do they feel the same when picked up. Bates was heard on the recording apologizing when he realized he shot Harris. Instead of immediately attempting to save Eric Harris’ life when he states he’s having a hard time breathing, another officer responds, “fuck your breath.” Eric Garner yelled I can’t breath multiple times on camera and was left to die. Eric Harris, in a different order of words, said the same thing and was told, fuck your breath. I cannot even begin to explain the feelings that emerged when I heard that snippet from the recording. What I do know is, I no longer feel safe. I have seen this question asked multiple times by multiple people of color. I reiterate those same words. How much more are we supposed to take?

The very people who are supposed to protect us, are gunning us down in the streets like animals. Black men and women are walking with targets on our backs. All because the skin we are born with elicits fear in white people; most especially law enforcement. Racism is do deeply entrenched in this country that every stereotype given to Black people by the majority, is used to murder us. Black people literally cannot walk down the street without being accosted by the police because we fit the description of some suspect. Black people cannot walk home at night because some overzealous loser thinks we get away with crime. Black people cannot come home from a bachelor party without being riddled with bullets because some scary, trigger happy officer thinks he saw a gun. A black woman can knock on a door because she is in need of help and never see another day. Black people can commit the simplest of infractions and be killed for it. Yet, our white counterparts can carry out the most egregious act of domestic terrorism, be taken alive and stand trial in front of a jury of his peers. White people can commit an act of domestic terrorism, stand in a courtroom, plead insanity and be sentenced to a mental health facility.  A little black girl can be asleep in her bed and be shot and her murderer can be found innocent by a jury of his peers. The sight of a police car gives me anxiety. When I hear police sirens, my heart begins to race and I pray a black person will not be on the receiving end of that siren. What disgusts me about all of this is that so many white people (and those black folks who love to shuck and jive) do not see the issue. All of this, “We are one race. There is no black or white, there’s only the human race. Maybe if Black people didn’t break the law you wouldn’t feel this way. There is no such thing as white privilege,” crap is disgusting. I want all of you who feel that way to lean in very closely. You ready?

Fuck you.

I am not even going to dignify my next statements with a, “not all white people” because, if this does not apply, then hooray for you. With that being said, how dare you, white people, fix your mouths to blame a victim? How dare you sit in your ivory tower and say you are not afforded any type of privilege. How dare you fix your lips to make such a ludicrous statement when that tower sits atop a hill on the very land the ancestors you love to claim raped, pillaged, and stole from the native people who lived here. They didn’t stop there, though. Those white folks took a fleet of boats to another continent, raped, pillaged, and stole humans from other countries and introduced slave labor to the very land they stole. They put people in chains and treated them like cattle. Mothers were ripped away from their children. Women were raped. Men fought for their entertainment. Men, women and children worked your land and in your homes. Completing tasks you felt you were to good to do, including nursing the children they birthed, while their own were sold or worked outside like animals.  You made caricatures of the black people and called us names. White people instilled a fear of black people so deep, it has become institutional. Then the Civil War came and the very power they had was in jeopardy. Your ancestors were concerned that the people they held in chains would rise up and overpower them. Oh, but they were a clever bunch. The white men who cracked the whip in the fields, put on white sheets to become one of the most frightening and dangerous domestic terror groups on American soil. Those sheets they wore then turned into blue uniforms, a badge, a gun and, eventually, equipped with weapons best fit for war. You have, quite literally, been taught since Columbus landed here, that your alabaster colored skin gives you the right to do what you want, when you want, and how you want. The very privilege you deny is oozing from your pores and dripping down your lips when you state, with aplomb I might add, that you have no privilege. I’ll bring the proof of your privilege back to 2015. Robert Bates, the officer who murdered Eric Harris, was charged with Second-Degree Manslaughter. He was given permission to travel to the Bahamas for his family vacation. Let me say that again for the people in the cheap seats. He murdered a man, it was captured on camera, said he was sorry, was charged, and was still allowed to travel on a family vacation to the Bahamas. White police officers can kill a black man and still go lay out in the sun with his family.

George Zimmerman, a law enforcement wannabe, followed and murdered Trayvon Martin. He had a substantial amount of money raised for him by his supporters. A jury found him not guilty and he went on to take photos at gun shows. Tamir Rice was playing in park with a toy gun and in less than two seconds was shot dead. Oscar Grant was face down on the train platform and was shot and killed. That officer claimed to grab his gun instead of his taser, just like Bates. Sean Bell was leaving his bachelor party and was murdered the night before his wedding. The police fired over fifty times at a group of unarmed men like they were at the O.K. Corral. Akai Gurley was shot in the stairwell of his housing project by a skittish rookie cop. Amadou Diallo was murdered outside his apartment, his body riddled with nineteen bullets. Eric Garner was said to be selling loose cigarettes when he was killed on camera. It should be noted that the man who shot the footage was arrested and thrown in jail. Darren Wilson shot Mike Brown and lied about how it all happened. He made Mike Brown seem like he was Godzilla on steroids. He was protected and had a substantial amount of money raised for him by supporters, also. Some of whom are members of law enforcement. A Grand Jury was fed evidence that kept him from being indicted. He got married and is leading a normal life.  Protestors took to the streets in the wake of Mike Browns death and were faced with dogs, tanks and tear gas. All of these men died at the hands of the very people who are sworn to protect and serve them. All of this happened in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

In the words of one of my favorite poets, Dahlak Brathwaite, “And that’s why fuck the police be our favorite hymn. I know it’s a vicious cycle but it ain’t gone end…”