By The night of Darren Wilson’s non-indictment, amidst all the circulation about white privilege and injustice in the land of red, white and blue, one particular statement stood out. I was scrolling through Tumblr, my frustration with the American justice system beyond the usual, when I saw a post by @mercedesbenzodiazepine:
This resonated with me. When your own justice system fails you, when everything you’ve been told about the land you occupy becomes a figment of the nationalistic rhetoric spoon-fed in our societies, you can’t help but feel disconnected.
The non-indictment of Darren Wilson will not only burn the hearts of those who loved Michael Brown, those who knew he was a human being deserving of life, those who knew there was injustice that day, those who saw Darren Wilson stand over Brown’s dead body — it will tear this nation apart.
On my Facebook, the lines are clearly drawn between two types of people: those who are mourning over the loss of Mike Brown and the loss of hope for our justice system, and those who are rushing to the defense of a man who will walk free for the murder of a shy, innocent, unarmed 18-year-old black student, who, if we were to convict him with anything, was just trying to live his life.
We stand in solidarity with the people of Ferguson. Those who took to the streets throughout the night. Those who wept for the many Mike Browns whose murderers walked away free. Those who wept tears of anguish and desperation. We stand with you.
It truly breaks my heart that, at this time of historic importance, all I can do is sit here and type this with every ounce of sincerity:
We stand in solidarity with the people of Ferguson. Those who took to the streets throughout the night. Those who wept for the many Mike Browns whose murderers walked away free. Those who wept tears of anguish and desperation. We stand with you.
We stand with every child who now believes they have to justify their right to exist in the land of freedom. We stand with every teenager who is afraid to walk through his own neighborhood because of the color of his skin. We stand with you.
One day there will be justice. And one day there will be a conviction. And one day, maybe, children of all skin colors can walk the same ground with the same sense of freedom, the same sense of safety, and the same sense of love for their country. Until then, stay safe. Until then, my American pride sits waiting.
Right on.
Let’s be honest with our self, Mr. Brown was not exactly shy in committing theft. But more importantly, only in this country does a life of a black man mean anything, that it arouses any self mourning, AFTER it gets taken away. Nobody cares about young black men before, certainly not the worthless sycophants such as Al Sharpton. Likewise with Trayoon Martin; why was not done anything, why was there no systematic impulse to do anything before a life is taken away.
It is not your pride but your consciousness that should be perturbed. Between the time Martin was killed and the time the perpetrator was acquitted, how many young black men lost their lives, where most likely the killer was another black man ? IS there any t-shirts for them ? Any awareness ? Any blog posts ?
No.
So in 2015 America, the only paradigm where a black young man has any reality attached to him is AFTER he gets killed by a white man.
That is should be an indictment of our selves and the country we live in.