totally-me

No, before you get the wrong idea. I am not afraid of my husband. I am afraid of you.

You, who threaten all cops because of a few bad cops.

You, who threaten all cops families so “those useless pigs can know your pain.”

When my husband leaves in the morning I know there is a chance he won’t come home because he would give his life to protect the innocent. But now I have to worry he won’t come home because you let your hatred blind your judgement.To bring justice to Michael Brown. Eric Garner, and all of the other victims of police brutality, you are threatening innocent men and women who took an oath to protect your life with their own.

I know you are hurting, and I know there has been great injustice for the two men and their families. I know there are corrupt cops, but the reality is, most police officers are not the problem. It is a select few who are ruining the image of all.

Please, I am one woman asking you to stop threatening my family and my husband because of the actions of others. I want my son to grow up without the fear I have. I want him to be able to tell his friends his father is a police officer without having to be afraid of backlash.

i married a black man and i’m afraid.. now don’t get me wrong, i’m not afraid of my husband. i’m afraid of cops because my husband is black. 

cops, who because of institutionalized racism perpetuating the narrative of the inherent criminality of black skin

cops, who without knowing my husband judge him because he is a large, black man, who is perceived as a threat because he was born to look he way he does.

when my husband goes to work the swing shift, i know there is a chance that on his way home around 11 pm, he won’t come home because he could be shot during a “routine stop” or even if he calls the cops to his place of employment, because of the perception of black men in america.

his blackness is not a crime. his blackness, our blackness is beautiful. but you don’t see that. 

you’re damn right we are hurting. we are hurting because Michael Brown was an unarmed black boy killed for being perceived as a threat. Eric Garner was choked to death ON camera. neither of their killers will face criminal prosecution. that there is a “blue wall of silence” that keeps so-called “good cops” from doing the right thing and confronting corruption and institutionalized racism. 

i get to live with the painful knowledge that any sons AND daughters we are blessed with, will walk through life with that hanging over them. that those are painful lessons we will have to teach them, so we don’t have to go identify the bodies of our beautiful wanted loved children. 

i am one woman, standing in representation of my fellow sisters, my mother, my aunts, my cousins, my friends and in solidarity women i do not even know, but share this fear or have seen this fear realized to say 

disabuse yourself of these notions that WE are a threat to you

understand that your husband chose to be a cop. we did not choose to be black. we love our blackness, but we hate how it is perceived. it is literally proving fatal for us.

i married a black man, and i don’t want to see him dead.

 i will bear black sons and daughters, and i don’t want to see them dead.