The 28th Hour *TRIGGER WARNING*
Every 28 hours an African-American is killed by police enforcement, armed security forces, a reckless vigilante, or an off-duty police officer. That means that as the year progresses, almost every day another black body is slain at the hands of an entity that is in place to “serve and protect”.
Just think about being the Mother or Father of a young black boy, reading this article on the internet and receiving a phone call, right about here ---
It’s your neighbor, the lady who lives down the street from your lower middle- class home in Baton Rouge. She’s a regular church going lady, up in age, and she lives with her husband who walks the neighborhood every morning. You answer the phone and she is breathing heavily and you hear people crying and screaming in the background. Listening to them, you can’t help but to imagine the screams and cries coming from the parents who had watch their child enter the gas chamber before they were killed by the thousands except, there is no more usage of the gas chamber, the Holocaust is over and there is no more genocide.
You frantically fight to ignore your racing mind, jumping to conclusions as swiftly and thoroughly as the suicide jumpers did while standing in the high windows of the World Trade Center in New York September 11th. Making very loose and irrational assumptions about what could be wrong and why this old woman seemed so disturbed on this warm summer night, you wait for an answer. Making your first attempt to communicate, you say “hello”, and without a swift breath, she begins to yell to God at the top of her lungs, pleading the blood of Jesus over you, shouting for his mercy and asking God to be with your family.
She weeps.
You hear the phone leave her lips for a swift second and a deeper baritone voice presents itself through the small hole at the top of your slender iPhone; deep enough so that your ears hear the faint sound of air rushing through a man’s nostrils. It’s an older man’s voice, he is crying, holding the phone still at a distance. You yell again “What’s happening, hello”…..
“They got em, oh lord they got em, come down here, they killed him dead”.
You yell, “Who, they killed who?” The old lady weeps too loud for you to hear again but, you already hear who it is through her horrific screams. You push back from your computer and there is a rush a horror that takes your body out of your seat and to the door. You begin to run down the street, the asphalt is still warm from earlier in the day on the bottom of your feet, then you realize you are barefoot. The red lights gathering on the corner from cars gathering around like fireflies, surrounding something on the ground. You then begin to stop, every inch closer to the circle of red taillights feels like how the descent into hell would feel. Warm tears run down your face and the demons that you once walked on the heads of, grab your knees as you fall to the pavement. Still not knowing exactly who this person is, you begin to lift yourself back up against what felt like boulders on your back, curious to find out if the little boy across the street was killed.
You have a son, and this is the one thing you never wanted for him. Death.
As you walk against the gut-wrenching pain in your stomach, the sweat from your head, and the tears pouring out of your soul, you inch closer and closer to the glowing red entrance to hell. You walk past other black bodies; mothers, fathers, uncles, nieces and children bent over; some weeping, some praying when you see the final person standing at the edge of the abyss over this body, partially shoved under the front bumper of a silver Toyota Camry.
It’s your son’s small, lifeless, black body with a large man on top of him. You stared in disbelief, the same way you did in the hospital when your eyes first met his and you held him in your arms a few seconds after bringing him into the world.
You look for his face and your mind somehow gives him one last breath the second before you could realize that he was still alive. Your hands lunge for his face and you try to say goodbye to him one last time before another demon grabs by your left hand and your body turns away. Your son is still dressed in his old, hand me down Buzz Light Year pajamas, and you reach for him with your right hand desperately trying to, bring him back home with you.
The bright strobe from the Police Cars begins to blind you as you are being pulled away from your little boy
One Flash…
Two Flash…
Three Flash…
Before you realize what has truly happened, you see a man walk past the area where you just were with his hands on his head, yelling at these figures that are on top of your little boy with his knees in his chest. You yell “Get off of him!”, as if his lifeless body would be freedat the sound of your fervid voice.
Four Flash…
A voice in your head, the voice that you never wanted to hear, whisper loud and clear your black son is dead. You look for the person who shot him dead in the street, furious that this may have been one of your neighbors only to see that your neighbors are standing with you, crying, angry, and confused. You think "Where are the police, they are supposed to be protecting my little boy from horrors like this ?"
Your vision clears, everything is now vivid and your face is wet with tears and pain, you can now see that the figure that was supposed to protect your little boy from harm, is the one who as killed your little boy and cause harm to him. His black body has fallen victim to living a life that you gave him.
So now who do you look to for answers, for protection, for safety, for reconciliation?
The man who killed him?
#AltonSterling
