No, I did not watch the video. I stopped watching videos of Black people getting shot, choked, beaten up, or encountering other violence in 2015. I don’t watch hood fights on Twitter or nothing anymore. I have seen us bleed enough for a lifetime, and my contrarian nature cannot remain unsettled watching authority in any system of power ravage my folks.
The last hella violent video featuring a Black person that I watched was when Eric Courtney Harris got shot by Officer Robert Charles Bates in Tulsa, OK. Stunned—Harris shouted, “I’m losing my breath,” only to then be told by Bates’ partner, “Fuck your breath.”
But I heard that Ahmaud Arbery, a cisgender Black man, got shot while jogging through his neighborhood. I heard that two white men were arrested for his murder. I also saw on someone’s Instagram story that Nina Pop, a Black trans woman from Sikeston, MO, was found murdered in her apartment. No arrests have been made for her murder. I heard that, in Indianapolis, three people were murdered in a single day by police officers—all within an 8 hour timespan.
I wonder who else, Black and imagining, met an ill-fate by steel sent sharp through their flesh? I wonder how we Black Americans will respond this time around?
Truth is, I do not give a fuck about Arbery’s killers being arrested. For real—I hope Miss Pop’s murderer is revealed before the police can read Miranda Rights to and cuff this hell-raising blood fiend. No disrespect to their respective families, but I have my reasons to not want to see arrests. First, there is no proof that U.S. jails, courts, police, or prisons are righteous purveyors of justice.
Also, who best to handle the head of a murderer than the people, the family, and kin most shook by the murder? When do we hold the State’s feet to the fire? When do we experience righteous justice?
May 4th marked the 50th anniversary of Kent State University’s campus-based massacre. Kent State is widely known for hosting the National Guard troops that shot 67 rounds into a crowd of students protesting the Vietnam War. They hit 13 students, killing 4 of them. This happened in 1970. It all went down in the center of the university; where there is a landscape of grass that rises gradually into a steep hill.
In that year, and when I attended the school, this is where students laid out, played frisbee, and, during winter, sled down the hill—howling like puberty in the bones of middle schoolers. Plopped at the bottom of the hill’s incline is a landmark: the Victory Bell. On May 4, 1970 the Victory Bell is where the “radicals” sat, all hippied out, chanting, “This is our campus! This is our campus!” They believed it, too. I hear their conviction while I watch their casual grass-sitting in old black & white footage—while strapped National Guardsmen stand right in front of them.
The Feds admitted that the students’ rally was “peaceful”—the most they did was throw some shit. But the Guards threw smoke bombs. Implored students to move. Mostly white students were in attendance because the Black students at Kent State knew the Guards would shoot. So the Black students, led by the campus organization Black United Students, stayed safe how they knew how, in community. Taking refuge in homes off-campus and joining friends in dorms just to make sure everybody good. And yet, General Canterbury, who led troops that day, argued, “In view of the extreme danger to the troops at this point, [the Guards] were justified in firing.”
I see parallels in the Kent State massacre, Ahmaud Arbery murder, Nina Pop’s murder, and the Indianapolis killings. In all these cases people with a fire for freedom were killed—only to then be mourned lovingly, and peacefully.
For the last 50 years, present and past Kent State students, staff, faculty, and community members gather to memorialize the students killed on May 4th. A ritual to maintain the memory of the slain, and to retain an accurate telling of the day’s events. It’s something like when Trayvon Martin was run up on and killed by George Zimmerman, and people across the world rallied with Skittles and Arizona ice-teas in hand. A similar memorial has been organized for Arbery. On Mother’s Day morning, people across the country took to park trails, sidewalks, and traditional tracks to run 2.23 miles, representing the date Ahmaud was killed (February 23rd)—participating in #RunWithMaud.
I stand with Arbery and his family. I want justice for them, and calmed hearts if ever possible. But I feel compelled to challenge the way we mourn.
I remember joining a mass of people to honor Trayvon’s life. Pockets of folks eating Skittles, sipping tea, singing songs, and praying. I remember organizing a die-in to bring awareness to Michael Brown’s murder. Students laid out for a symbolic four minutes. We mimed Brown’s body which had laid for four hours where he was gunned down.
Meanwhile students and faculty stepped over us to get to class on time. I remember a white woman administrator from the university praising our quiet rebellion—”so well-organized and emotionally jarring.”
I want to insist on a less romantic response to Arbery’s death. A response not engaging in social-media ready political theatre. I want to encourage us to move further than intellectualizing our terrifying circumstances.
I believe Black people must leave the house prepared to defend ourselves against forces that terrorize us—if and when we have it in us to leave the house at all. This is not to shirk at the way we mourn, but it’s in an effort to answer: what do we do with this abuse? How do we unleash the rage pushed so far down our throats out of fear and means of survival? How do we ensure we do not get caught slipping, and left to the mercy of another white American terrorist?
We are not at war, but we are clearly under attack. It has been this way for centuries in this country. So, the afternoon of Mother’s Day, instead of jogging in Arbery’s memory, I went to the gun range with my brother, sister in-law, and their two prepubescent sons. When we pulled up, my youngest nephew asked, “Where are we?” My brother responded, “The gun range,” with a half-smile and half glare, checking the faces of his sons.
They sat still. The youngest lowered his coloring book while his brother’s neck stiffened. They were given instructions, and we poured into the building, dodging rain and settled puddles.
I had been to the gun range before, but this time the air felt less static—still lead-filled yet not so nauseating. I perused the gun showcases with my nephews. My sister grabbed a pepper spray can, and we laughed at our need for one.
My brother, my oldest nephew, and I entered the range first. I was happy to see other Black families in there. My nephew’s nerves quieted him, and widened his eyes. His dad set-up their stall then put a 9mm in his 11-year-old hands. The trigger proved to be unwilling to give under his nervous index finger. His dad talked him through—“You are okay. Good grip. Just squeeze at the target.” I coaxed the crown of his head to soothe his nerves. Then he emptied his clip into the belly of his target. His shoulders lowered. I stepped to my stall, and tried to hit the bullseye like he did his target’s lungs.
This “justice system’s” interest in free-labor, court fees, and Black people’s enslavement cloud its judgement. The courts send murderous white people free, and leave numerous Black trans women’s cases unsolved and cold. Arbery and Pop’s cases are so fresh that we have a moment to shift the precedent. Both incidents are fertile ground for conversation extolling the importance of expressing grief publicly. But I am most interested in us responding with an intent to seek our own justice. Or will we put Arbery’s and Pop’s photos in our Instagram stories, and wait for a system, again, that has never expressed—through action—an interest in that justice?
I am calling for Black Americans to seek more seriously—more fervently—the fire James Baldwin told us was coming. I am calling for us to bear arms against those who will follow us armed in their cars while we take an evening jog.
We must put aside our New Testament morality. So many of us have walked away from Christianity with no tactics for shifting our morals and ethics into proper alignment for our own wellness and dreams. The challenge we face is not convincing white supremacists that our lives are of value. The challenge we face is learning how to value our lives above the sanctity of this country’s peace.
Suggested Readings:
Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, 1993
Lois Beckett, “Armed black citizens escort Michigan lawmaker to capitol after volatile rightwing protest“, The Guardian, 2020
Second Amendment to the United State Constitution
