“Sometimes its very intense and I walk – I mean, I write a sentence and I jump up and run outside or something; it sort of beats you up.” – Toni Morrison
My assignment in class was to engage with Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, having read that book over and over since last year, but I couldn’t bring myself to mimic his style. I resonate with a lot of what he speaks on: the inviolability of blackness in this country, the balancing of grief and belief, the finding of silver linings in a cloudy life.
But at the time I sat down, all I could think about was my own grief(s) and the shared grief brought about by the skin which is wrapped around our bones.
Sometimes the words become you, and sometimes you become the words. I wrote (sculpted?) this piece because I was experiencing emotional whiplash from seeing a brother get harassed by the po-lease in a home depot parking lot. Little details like that don’t leave you. The way I noticed the cop car slowly circling around a parked car, on the prowl. The way I saw bro walking down the street, minding his damn business. The 6th sense in me kicked in. I knew this was a setup.
Every time I see the cops, I assume they’re up to no good (which is ironic because whenever they see us, that’s likely what they assume). I also assume that whichever black person they’re about to harass is completely innocent of anything that cop’s imagination is about to accuse them of doing.
Whenever I drive past a car pulled over, and I see that the occupant is black, I’m torn. I say “DAMN BRO” and my face contorts into something like pain. I feel it in my heart. My biggest fear as a black man in this country, as a black person in this country, is to get pulled over. I know how that movie ends. I see it every day, though I’m helpless to change it.
I wrote (worked out?) this piece because I saw my brother in cuffs, white man standing beside him, digging into his pockets, asking “you got anything that’s gonna poke me? Any needles? No?”
You know damn well there aren’t any needles in there. And you know that we know that you know. But that’s life, bro (bro!).
I often feel somewhat unreal, or: detached from reality. Feelings of unreality. Some men describe it as an emptiness that won’t go away.
After convicting Amber Guyger of the murder of Botham Jean, Texas jurors were presented with racist and violent text and social media messages composed by the former Dallas police officer before the fatal shooting.
What a difference two and a half years makes.
White woman (paid by the state) kills black man, 10 year sentence.
Black man (thought he was protected by the blue of his uniform) kills white woman, 12.5 year sentence.
Our tendency to view black boys as tough and rugged – not just physically, but emotionally – can set them up to develop the traits and temperaments associated with (redacted).
Black man’s family publicly forgives the white woman for taking his life.
White woman’s family gets paid 20 million dollars before the trial is even finished. No forgiveness, just a press conference. “The money won’t bring back our Justine, but this sentence helps.” The money’s not bad either, huh?
They, in turn, can internalize that stereotype and expect themselves to be impervious to traumatic experiences such as abandonment, abuse, and death. (they become the inhumanity that they are accused of being/not/being).
The media trots out images of the black man’s brother hugging the white woman who killed him. There, you see? Proof of racial progress.
Proof of white lives taking black lives and black lives being expected to forgive white lives for taking those black lives. Progress! History is cyclical. Progress! Get out my face, dawg. Progress!
As they evolve into black men, these black boys may well be blind to the connection between their earlier experiences and their adult personalities and problems of living. (can’t you see they want us all dead? Is it not a miracle that any of us actively choose to live despite the ever-[present] threat of death lingering above us, behind us, around us?)
She gunned that man down in his apartment while he was eating ice cream, and all she got was 10 years, a bible and several hugs in court. She’ll be out in a few. You know it as much as I dew.
Philando Castille was shot and killed not too far from where I stand writing this. His killer got a payday from the St. Anthony Village police and agreed to be walk away from his job. No finding of wrongdoing, no nothing. He took that black life, in front of that black family, and he got a settlement deal, walking freely with a clear conscience. A google search prompted no results as to his current profession.
A google search reported that this country has no conscience.
Consider this: (this country expects us to be grateful, yet this country has no conscience)
If this country had a conscience, that New Jersey police chief wouldn’t have said what he had said:
“I’m f***ing tired of them man. I’ll tell you what, it’s gonna get to the point where I could shoot one of these motherf***ers. And that (N-word) bitch lady, she almost got it,” Nucera said in the recording.
He wouldn’t have done what he’d done, so recklessly, for so many years:
“The complaint says that the 18-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl attempted to resist arrest, and the responding officers called for backup. After the man was handcuffed and as he was led out of the hotel, the complaint alleges, Nucera approached him from behind and slammed his head into a metal doorjamb. Within hours, a subordinate officer recorded Nucera making derogatory remarks about black people and using racial slurs. The recording was played in open court during Nucera’s trial.”
(boy you should’ve known by now, Eazy Duz It)
Nucera has a history of making racist comments concerning African Americans, and that he frequently referred to them by several slurs. After a previous incident, Nucera compared them to ISIS, saying that they have no value, according to the complaint.
The media can’t even say “this man hates black people.” They protect him in their words: “has a history of making racist comments.” They pull their punches. We dying on these streets and they codify that death into their words.
“They should line them all up and mow ’em down. I’d like to be on the firing squad,” Nucera said, according to the complaint –
(they call us monkeys, they call us isis. they want us all dead, not to exist. You’d have to be crazy not to be paranoid as a nonwhite person in this country. Especially if you’re the most non of nonwhites. A non-non. A black. A (redaction), not to be confused with reduction. Not a sauce, but lost in it, though, it hurts you so?)
Another day, another trial. What do you think the outcome will be? History is cyclical, and some people are on the losing end of it. That’s bleak, not black. Progress!
Sometimes you brush up against ideas which so unsettle you that they jar you awake. You slept awkward last night, Slim, and now you’re paying the price. Maybe you can go home.
Look, I feel like I lost a brother when I read this. That’s what this country does to us. That’s what this country did to me. That’s why I’m still in recovery. Ideological recovery. It hurts, man it hurts a great deal. It’s like a part of me was ripped out of my artery.
I still see so much of myself on that pavement leaking.
(CNN) All three cases started with a traffic stop.
A black man is pulled over by a police officer.
Why?
He was missing a front license plate. For suspicious activity. Because a cop thought the driver looked like a robbery suspect.
Regardless of the reason, the outcome was the same for Samuel DuBose, Sylville Smith and Philando Castile — none of them survived.
The police officers fired their weapons, saying they had feared for their lives.
The three shootings were on video, which was scrutinized by lawyers and repeatedly played before the jurors.
All three of these cases came to a head last week without any of the former police officers found guilty. Two were acquitted and one trial ended in deadlock.
Prosecutors haven’t had much success convicting police officers in high-profile cases, even when the shooting is on video.
In May, Oklahoma police officer Betty Shelby was acquitted in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man.
The lack of convictions has riled advocates and victims’ families who say the system is stacked in favor of law enforcement and disregards black lives.
(look into the eyes of your killer, bro.
See what I see.)
(it don’t matter what we do, bro. nor what they. you know it don’t.)
(faces can’t lie, bro, look at her face. Look at bro’s face)
(now look at this font: size28, for the number of years bro would have turned this year)
(bro, rest in peace, bro)
(white tears S-O-P, bro. automatic assumption that we not human bro. That we invading their space, intending to take their life. when the only lives ever taken are ours. What is ours?)
(who is black, bro // whose\who’s home, bro // Who is guilty of what and what does it mean?)
(ac not working, room is humid, the air just gets stuck in your throat, bro. Like a chokehold, bro. Like a man wishing he’ll get to hear his son’s voice once a month again, bro. But bro ain’t coming back, bro) ((what is an impact statement when the words can’t bring bro b[L]ack))?
(they saying her history of hate wasn’t planned into the future, bro) hell out my face, dawg
(what kind of guilt involves the judge hugging you for taking a life?)
(Not to mention the part where bro’s younger bro asked the judge if he could hug the killer, forgive the killer, tell the killer he loved her like his brother would have wanted, bro, what is this, bro, what is this?)
(they talmbout sudden passion, bro. a sudden and striking fear of black skin forced the killer to, in an impassioned rage, take bro’s life, bro. The judge who just hugged the killer instructed the jury to be lenient on her, BRO.)
(where was that leniency for Mohamed Noor when they sentenced bro?)
(ever means never, bro. The cost of a white life vs that of a black death is ever apparent, bro. all depends on the skin, all depends on the skin you living in, bro.)
(we so tired of being tried, bro)
((don’t kid yourself, sis, you know the game. Let me demonstrate:
(they reached that settlement during bro’s trial; no waiting period, they were quick widdit (not to be confused with quick-witted))
(they rolled out a brinks truck for that white family, set new records for that white family)(money don’t bring people back, but neither does hugging the killer, bro)
(3 mill is a far cry from 20, bro. make you wanna cry bro. but Winehouse said it best: these tears dry on their own)
(Shakespearean tragedy and we can’t walk off stage)
(that means black death)
(they paid that man to take bro’s life bro)
(they watched bro choke on his own blood for 5 full minutes, bro)
(always watching, bro, you know they watch)
(you already knew where I was going with this, bro. You’ve seen the movie. You live it. Bro. I love you, bro.)
(it’s often said that a thought has no color) (Color code: #F12)
(can be said that money has no color. But money talks. The price of a head costs. The color of that head determines the cost. The block. Auction block. We living on the block. Bro. I just want it to stop. But I know that it won’t. So I take stock. With pictures, with words. Let the words talk. Sometimes the words become me.)