#angryblackstudent

Tomorrow marks one-year since of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. I was planning on writing something about how our recognition and response to police brutality has changed in this past year, and as I was about to start I learned of the death of Christian Taylor. Yet another unarmed Black man killed by a police officer in training under suspicious circumstances and with varying accounts of what actually happened, and everyone is awaiting the release of video surveillance footage to get a glimpse of what really happened. 

Taylor, a 19 year-old football player, has been described as an incredibly generous and kind soul by his friends and family, and his tweets even showed he was active in the ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ movement and spoke out against police brutality. He is dead for allegedly breaking into a car dealership at 1 in the morning and following an “altercation with an officer”, though the particular circumstances around his death are unclear. What is clear is that (allegedly) breaking into a car dealership does not carry a death sentence. Neither does (allegedly) having an “altercation” with a police officer. 

Growing up in a Black family in a predominately White suburb, you have many talks with your family about race. One of the first such discussions that my dad had with me was about the concept of the Angry Black Man. “Angry Black men get shot,” he told me, “it doesn’t matter if they’re rich, poor, or anywhere in between. Once you become an Angry Black Man you aren’t seen as anything other than a threat, as someone who can be killed for being too imposing.” Sensing my incredulity he went on to explain to me that yes I could get angry, but my anger should never be as a direct response to another person’s anger and it should never be displaced. He also said that I should never stay angry for the sake of being angry, and that once the cause of my anger was gone, my anger should go with it. I could be angry as a Black man, but I would have to be angry with a purpose and not just be another Angry Black Man. Naturally this teaching was categorically rejected by my 8-year old mind, but nearly every time I would get angry while growing up my dad would remind me of this talk and say, “With a purpose!”

As I grew up and learned more about race outside of Kennesaw, I began to see the truth in what my dad kept trying to teach me. I watched on the news as armed, unarmed, old, young, innocent and guilty “Angry Black Men” were shot and killed because someone had felt threatened. After years of hearing and reading about such deaths I found that I had become strangely desensitized; each one built elicited an anger that I couldn’t let go and as I finally did, another one would take its place. The recurring anger soon became a constant; I was always angry, not just for each individual shooting, but for the system that continually allowed them to happen. It was recently during another discussion about race with my dad caused by the shootings of two unarmed Black men within a span of mere hours, that I found a purpose and an outlet for that anger.

I wrote. I hammered my emotions out onto my keyboard and didn’t stop until I couldn’t think of any more words to put on the screen. I wrote about their deaths, I wrote about the system that failed them and took their lives, I wrote about how I felt that the system was failing me. It was cathartic to finally be able to see and read clearly what I had been shouting inside for years. I did nothing with those initial pieces. I saved them and I stopped typing. My anger was gone. Then another shooting happened, though this time there were no Angry Black Men to blame. This time is was the system directly at fault, and I found myself overcome with sadness and anger once more. So I wrote again. I wrote about a symbol for the system, a flag. I knew that I couldn’t keep that piece to myself and I planned to post it, but first I had my dad read it.