When
I heard the Eric Garner decision yesterday, my feelings were beyond
naming.
Outrage... disgust... horror... devastation...denial... fear...
I
spent the day in a haze, unable to concentrate. Were all the people
going about their daily life around me unaware of the decision? Or --
worse -- did people just not care? The only thing I could think to do to
resolve the growing turmoil within was to protest.
As I exited my car
at MLK Blvd and Crenshaw that night, at first I felt
awkward. I wondered if I had the right to claim this grief. When a
woman shouted through a bullhorn "I am Michael Brown!" for us to repeat,
at first I felt timid. But eventually, my voice joined the chant: "I am
Michael Brown! I am Eric Garner! I am Ezell Ford! I am Kelly Thompson!"
And I understood. To not claim their loss as my own would be to deny
someone's humanity; to not identify directly with them would mean either
they were not human, or I am not.
Eventually the protest moved to the
Walmart down the road. There I saw beautiful children, gripping their
parents' hands tight, looking at us with questioning faces. The store
was protected by a line of a dozen policemen, many of them black, whose
thoughts I can't begin to imagine. One protester had a drum; his
drumming kept our voices from flagging. With some of the protesters
chanting "ABOLISH THE POLICE!", the tension palpable, it was all I could
do not to samba - the dance that reminds me I'm alive - to pray with my
feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment