I'm telling these tears, "Go and fall away, fall way" May the last once burn into flames...
Freedom! Freedom! Where are you?
Cause I need freedom too!
I break chains all by myself
Won't let my freedom rot in hell
Hey! I'ma keep running
Cause a winner don't quit on themselves. Beyoncé, et al, (2016) Lemonade
I did not want to right this article. I already have burning tears in my eyes. It fits because that is how I feel on the inside. Just burning, somewhere between anger and hurt and pain. Jesse Williams’ speech is more to me than a trending topic or a hashtag…it’s reality and it’s personal - it’s my life.
Just a few days ago, it would have been Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday. He was gunned down, as Williams’ said, drive by style in a park while he was playing alone. I, like many others, watched and waited for criminal charges that would never come. Over and over again we see murderous cops kill unarmed black people in the street like they are nothing but animals. Over and over again we watch them all get away with it. States from NY to Florida to Texas to California keep setting precedents that killing innocent citizens is ok. Heartbroken, I watched on TV and online as people came up with ridiculous reasons and excuses as to why it was ok to shoot and kill a 12 year old in broad daylight in a park days before Thanksgiving. They said ignorant things like, “think of the cops' position…they just saw a gun….they were supposed to shoot first and ask questions later. However, over and over cops take down armed suspects without any fatalities. It’s ok though because a cop’s job is stressful. It is sad and scary to think about but how many times did we play cops and robbers with toy guns as children. Now apparently that is something else that can get children killed on the street by police.
People are furious yet each and every time a cop needlessly kills a black person they walk. No charge. It is as if the death of that person would have happened whether or not they came into contact with that cop, something like a part in a final destination movie. This is the basis or the final straw that started the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s the slap in the face that chiefs of police, sheriffs, mayors, DA’s, and judges continually hand out after an unarmed person is gunned down in the streets. The message has been sent loud and clear, it is open season on black people and the one’s doing all of the killing is the cops.
Jesse Williams’ speech hit so many so hard because it was like he was speaking to us, with us, for us all at once. The things that Jesse Williams said is timely, honest and the thought of many other Americans. Americans, we are never really considered American. No matter how much we have done for this country, wars we have fought in, struggles we have faced and conquered. We are always seen and treated as less than in this country. Our communities are over policed - therefore we are brutalized and jailed more often and for longer, harsher sentences. Everyone remembers Brock and his father and his joke of a sentence for brutally raping a girl - he got like 6 months in jail. Meanwhile a black student, same predicament, same crime, he got 15-25 years; his name is Corey Batey.
You have case studies all over the country coming out proving that police target African American drivers and “minority” drivers more. We get arrested more, harsher sentences, etc. It is an ongoing cycle. That white privilege that showed the country we are not and have not been making this stuff up. We are targeted more by police, abused, shot, killed, jailed more and for longer.
We have struggled from the beginning. Studies are showing that young African American kids are suspended and disciplined more in school than their white counterparts. From the beginning we are labeled as less than. According to LA Times author, Joy Resmovits, “There were 1,439,188 preschool students in 28,783 schools that were polled. Of those, 6,743, or 0.47%, were suspended once or more than once. Although black girls represent 20% of preschool enrollment, 54% of preschool girls suspended once or more were black. And black preschool children overall were 3.6 times as likely to be suspended as white preschoolers”. My mother always taught me that I had to work harder because in this world I am a black woman and will be judged first for that.
Jesse Williams said we are tired of waiting for freedom and waiting to be treated equally. If we were treated equal Freddie Gray would be alive, Tamir Rice would be alive, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd they would all be alive right now. We are getting tired of seeing black bodies’ dead by the hands of police and we are tired of the same thing happening over and over again.
My husband just lost his cousin, the night before Father’s day. He was shot and killed by a cop. The original story was that he fought the cop and the k9 injured them so he shot and killed him. Of course once the autopsy came out it was found out that story was a complete lie. The family hired an attorney who is great and working hard for justice. They found out through witnesses and home surveillance footage that in fact his cousin, Ronnie, ran and the cop sicced the dog on him. He attempted to surrender and the k9 latched onto and bit off a piece of his genitals. YES I SAID GENITALS!!!!!!!!!!! (By the way this is not a new practice, white supremacists have been mutilating black male’s genitals for centuries). When he began to fight the dog off of him, he was shot 3 times in the chest and once in stomach. The Sheriff and mayor are currently following their counterparts in this country and stalling the process and making it clear that justice will not be served if they have anything to say about it.
Jesse Williams made one more great point and it might just be a new anthem for many to stand by when he said, “the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job. Stop with all of that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest, if you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down”.
The day of arguing back and forth about the existence of racism is over. It is clear as day. The only thing that is not is do people really not see this mess or is it because it benefits them or our oppression does not affect them that they can afford to ignore it or come down on anyone who speaks up against it? Racism has been in this country since Columbus came onto its shores. What are you going to do about it now?
