By Teju Adisa-Farrar
22 year old Stephon Clark was killed in his grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento, California on March 19th. Two policemen shot at him 20 times, 8 of the bullets hit his body. 38 year old Marielle Franco was murdered, possibly by military police, in her car on March 14th in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
From Fred Hampton, who was shot dead in his bed in 1969, to Korryn Gaines, who was shot in her apartment with her 5 year old son in her arms in 2016, law enforcement has killed Black people in our “safe spaces” for centuries. So if gun laws and policies are changed to make sure there are more “safe spaces,” what does that do for us if these changes do not apply to the police and military?
Our first geography is our mother. She is the first place that we live. It is in the womb of our mothers, or in the womb of any person who carries us, where we become conscious of our environment—before we are pushed out into it. For Black babies, it is likely the womb is the safest place they will have in their lifetime. And with disparities between infant mortality rates and postpartum health in Black communities versus other communities, along with the fact that police have no problem killing our mothers—even the womb is not a safe place for Black children.
Once a Black baby enters this world, they are tasked with constantly navigating their mobility, environment, reality—which makes up their geography—in order to stay alive. Life is not a given, and when you are Black death is around any corner, on any street, in any store, in any airport. It is odd that death seems so close while you are living your life.
In her introduction for Calling Home: Working-Class Women’s Writings, Janet Zandy says, “home is an idea: an inner geography… where there is no sense of ‘otherness’.”At our homes we should feel like we belong, be who we are without threat, and be safe. But this is not the case for Black people.
We are not safe in our homes, because they will shoot us there too. Racial violence does not heed the distinction between inner and outer geographies. When you are Black, violence can and will happen to you anywhere.
As we have seen in the last two weeks, shooting Black people in places otherwise considered sanctuary or “safe” is not rare. On any map we are always targets; there is nowhere we can go where we are completely safe from the structural and institutional violence of our countries.
When you live in a country where your presence is seen both as a nuisance and a threat, where your life’s value has fluctuated and changed over time in a country’s laws, you have no geographies of safety. Since it is clear that Black life is not valued in countries like the United States and Brazil, everywhere we go our value—and thus our life—is up for debate. What is the value of a Black life on the street? What is the value of a Black life in a car? Do we care about Black life at home? Do we care about Black life on a plane? Do we care about Black lives in a school? If there is nowhere we cannot be killed, then there is nowhere that we are valued.
Unless restrictive gun laws and policies apply to the police and the military that consistently devalue us in all spaces, it will not protect Black people and our children from being killed.
In Ireland, only about one quarter of police are allowed to carry firearms. In Fiji, Samoa, Nauru and several other Pacific Island nations, police do not carry firearms at all. Police in these countries are better trained to protect and confront conflict or danger when it arises. These countries operate on a higher level of trust.
Taking away guns from civilians and police in the United States is not a solution to protecting Black lives, though it will make it more difficult for us to be killed in our homes, cars, and schools by police or others. It will not instantaneously create a paradigm shift where Black lives suddenly matter. However, drawing attention to the reality that the fault lies with the government paves the way for more substantial ideas and the possibility to imagine completely new alternatives. Alternatives with the basis of valuing Black human life as a requisite to valuing all human life.
Black geographies are geographies of resilience. Our geographies are of resistance. Our geographies are an insistence to life. We will continue to protect ourselves and each other’s lives, despite a lack of safe spaces. We are working to create a world where our geographies are not only focused on survival, but on liberation. There is no separate survival, so we will act accordingly.
Suggested Reading:
Duncan, James and Ley, David. Place/Culture/Representation. Routledge, 1993.
Claudia, Rankine. Citizen: An American Lyric. Graywolf Press, 2014.
Wynter, Sylvia. On Being Human as Praxis. Duke University Press, 2014.
Teju is a writer, poet and urban geographer. Her work focuses on subaltern artist & activist communities, geographies of Blackness, decolonization, social art praxis, and postcolonial culture in cities. She’s out here just trying to get funding for her projects, by any means necessary.
