Social media has become less of a networking tool and more of a chore. Every day I scroll for hours with the assumption I’ll see another victim of being black in America. And when you scroll long enough, you find what you’re looking for, evoking a sigh and thoughts of, “not this shit again.”
I feel helpless, I feel small and I feel like I don’t matter. I am desensitized. I am angry, hurt, and more than anything afraid. Every day just walking out of my apartment building I feel my life could be in jeopardy as a big black male over 6 feet tall and weighing over 200 pounds. Seeing a police car drive past me petrifies me. Walking past a group of white women makes me nervous. And I haven’t done anything to be nervous.
This is my reality because far too often I see the tweets, the posts, read the articles, and watch the local broadcasts of interactions with law enforcement and black people. Or white people mustering up crocodile tears and lying about being in harm’s way when they get into any sort of confrontation with black folks.
As of the last United States Census, black people make up 12.7 percent of the American population, however, according to the research advocacy group Mapping Police Violence, of the 7,666 police-involved killings recorded from 2013–2019, 24 percent of those involved a black person. That means a black person is more likely to be killed by a cop twice as much as any other American.
Before I go out of the house my mom always tells me, “Be smart, be safe, and be aware.” I walk quite a bit when I go places and every time I do I’m afraid of being misidentified or even picked on by police. For every murder that catches national exposure and attention there’s hundreds that don’t. Often times these are situations that can be averted but lead to cold-blooded murder.
The most recently publicized killing to draw national public outcries was George Floyd in Minnesota, who was suffocated by Derek Chauvin when he violently put his knee in Floyd’s neck and left it there until he was breathless, although Floyd was adamant he couldn’t breathe and posed no serious threat to Chauvin or the three other onlooking officers.
I usually don’t watch these executions but something told me to click play on this one. I got the wind knocked out of me and I couldn’t even speak. Can you imagine crying out for help and people whose job it is to protect and serve you just watch you die? I thought about my mom and how I cry for her when I’m in danger, as Floyd is heard doing. He was helpless and they didn’t care.
What pisses me off the most is people who feel the need to talk about the things someone has done in their past as if that’s a reason for them to die. I’ve seen white people who murdered people treated with more compassion than black people who are in custody for petty non-life threatening situations.
I’ve let anger fester for years as the technology becomes more readily available and black folks are treated like second class citizens and executed on camera. I’ve read the think pieces, listened to people on their soapboxes, and watched protest after protest and nothing has changed.
During the last week, the nation has seen public demonstrations ranging from peaceful marches to chaos on the streets and standoffs with the police. People are fed up. Years and years of anger, hurt, and confusion is boiling over and folks have reached a breaking point.
Quite a bit of looting and damaging of business have been done too. When people are angry and don’t know what to do they channel their feelings any way they feel necessary and sometimes it leads to looting, whether right or wrong people are pissed and just trying to display their anger.
The problem at its core is a system that was put in place when blacks were viewed as three-fifths of a person was not designed for them. Institutionalized racism is, “reflected in disparities regarding wealth, income, criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education, among other factors,” according to Wikipedia.
Minorities as a whole are at a disadvantage in America. We’ve got to get more representation. That starts in education, there’s a need for black educators educating our black children. We need black legislators in our black neighborhoods. We need more representation at the local, state, and national levels if we want to be heard. That means voting, which they’ve been trying to make more difficult than ever while people are home during the coronavirus pandemic, don’t let that discourage you, vote.
We need more black doctors and physicians, too often are black people at higher risk of health concerns and dying more frequently than their white counterparts because there’s a disconnect and lack of trust and protection between the patients and healthcare workers.
We need more black people in journalism, writing, shooting, and anchoring our news and letting our voices be heard.
We need more black lawyers who understand being black in America and our plight who can properly provide legal counsel.
We need to destigmatize seeking therapy. Mental health matters and we need more black therapists that understand our plight.
I’m sick of seeing the Karen’s of the world who scream bloody murder to police when they’re the aggressors and most of the time not minding their business. I’m tired of police approaching vehicles with guns drawn. I’m infuriated by people sworn in to protect and serve playing the victim and claiming they feared for their life. I have had it with people who don’t speak out against racism because it doesn’t affect them. I’m tired of unwarranted vigilance from the George Zimmerman’s and Greg and Travis McMichael’s of the world. We can’t even sleep in our own homes without being killed (Breonna Taylor). We are at the crossroads of an awakening and we are tired of black lives being devalued.
