I know that I am incapable of feeling not even the tiniest fraction of the rage and pain and sadness that so many black people experience on an everyday basis as a result of experiences like this. But if the tears in my eyes and the knot in my stomach can provide any useful comparison, then I honestly don't know how our entire nation isn't justifiably on fire by now.
There are so many dead black bodies in the morgue, in the grave...and for every one we kill, for every one we desecrate with our slander and our ignorance, another piece of our humanity dies right along with them.
How can we do this to them? How can we treat people this way? How can we be so fucking cruel?
The rest of the world mocks the way America treats its own, especially the least among us. Or worse, nations use our hypocrisy as a justification to perpetuate their own abuses. Is this the exceptionalism we wish to be known for? Being exceptional at double standards? At black and brown subjugation? At genocide?
Mike Brown was executed by a cop. Eric Garner was lynched by a cop. Tamir Rice? Killed in a drive-by...by a cop. It's open season on Black America, and the permits are far too easy to obtain. The names of the dead go on and on and on, innocent souls begins number....is this the legacy we wish to leave behind for our children? A bloody trail of black and brown corpses, stretching infinitely to every horizon?
Chris Rock said in a recent interview that it's not "black progress" that has allowed for people of color in America to be seen by whites as something less than wild animals in need of breaking, it's white progress. That being the case, we're crawling like infanta when we should be running like devils to catch up with Basic human decency and tell Black America how fucking sorry we are. For everything. Every goddamned thing.