#blackwriting

I’m rambling here so forgive me if it doesn’t make sense.

I’ve been trying to find the words to talk about Jordan Edwards that haven’t already been said before. Because unfortunately this is a familiar event. “It happened again” I read as a headline. Whether it be Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Jordan Dunn, Korynn Gaines, Michael Slager, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling or all of the other hashtags–we’ve come to know the affects of police brutality all too well. What else is there to say? It’s such an exhausting and traumatizing experience. But you feel like you have to say something because you can’t be silent. But sometimes I go silent and trust others in the revolution. I go through periods where I’m extremely vocal about these issues and others where I go dormant for my own mental health because I find myself in a dark place because of it. Unfortunately the issues never go away so I always come back to something to talk about.

To talk about where a young black person is killed by a police officer and we as a black community immediately have to find ways to humanize the victim. We have to find ways to defend his right to live. We have to highlight how great he is was so people will actually sympathize over the death of a black body. We have to accumulate his worth and that he was deserving of life for the sake of justice. Who else has to do this when they lose a loved one? But Jordan Edwards family has roll out his highly reel, and say how great of a student he was because otherwise he was just another black kid killed by a police who was “doing his job”. Who lied about the events that took place. Who killed an unarmed black boy with a rifle. Who needs to be held accountable. I wish black people were given the opportunity to focus more on the wrongful actions of police officers instead of having to defend the victims right to live. Not because he could’ve gone on to be something great or because he was an honor roll student, but simply because he was here. That his life shouldn’t have been cut short because of the careless actions of a police officer. Because he did nothing deserving of excessive force. This situation is a problem not because Jordan could’ve gone on to college but because he was here and because other people feel they can determine the value or lack there of of black lives . Because someone feels they have the right to take that life away. It’s a shame that black people have to go through so much to show ourselves worthy. We spend so much on that. When we should be highlighting the wrong of the police. But we don’t get that chance. We have to prove ourselves first before we can prove their faults