Friday, June 23, 2017

Shooted

What's on my mind tonight, what been on my mind, and heavy on my heart, is Philando Castile's little girl sobbing and hugging her mother in the back of a police cruiser after seeing her father shot in front of her by a cop who pulled him over for a broken taillight. Castile had very politely made the cop aware that he had a liscensed firearm in the car. Not a minute later he was dead. By now you've heard the story so I won't rehash it here. But that video of his little girl, 4 years old, begging her mother to stop cursing and screaming, begging her to be quiet because "I don't want you to get shooted!" The panic in her voice. The two of them sobbing. And moments later, the little one putting her arms around her mother's neck and saying, "Don't cry, Mommy, I'm here with you, I can keep you safe." And then whimpering, "I wish this town was safer. I don't want it to be like this anymore."

I also watched the dash cam video of the actual shooting. It tore a piece of my soul, and I don't mean that as a metaphor. I mean to say I am not the same today as I was before I saw it. White people in America can carry licensed firearms all day long but make no mistake, if you're black, the law doesn't apply to you. You'll be pumped full of bullets before you can take a breath, with your little girl in the back seat and your fiancée beside you, and the NRA will be dead silent, because when they defend the right to bear arms they aren't talking about you.

After watching these videos released in the wake of Castile's killer being acquitted of manslaughter charges this week, Trevor Noah said, "This broke me."

This broke me.


12 comments:

  1. Yes, this is OUTRAGROUS. And the cop got off free and clean and no punishment whatsoever. I am so sorry for that child. I am so sorry about the blatant racism that exists in our country.

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  2. This country is broken and this is atrocious.

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  3. I swear to any god that exists I have spent my entire life feeling as if I need to continuously weep and say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The injustice and cruelty with which my "race" has treated people of color- and not just in this country- has always been so obvious and apparent to me and I have always felt so helpless in its horrid, murderous face. I cannot watch these videos. I do not think I would ever be able to breathe again. I think I would be compelled to either murder or suicide. I mean that quite literally. Perhaps both. At this moment in time I am barely hanging on to the probably false belief that there are more loving people than there are people who hate. It is a belief that I could now easily fit in my eye and not blink. And I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.
    We are all broken.

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  4. The incident was horrible on every level. Excellent point about the NRA!

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  5. That poor baby, what this has done to her little life. It's a plague, an ugly life threatening and so often terminal plague. The problem is the sick don't suffer, only those around them do.

    I hope that cop is eaten by his conscious and caries this so deeply for the rest of his life that, pray to god, he affects change - but I'm not holding my breath. If the shoe was on the other foot, there would be nation wide outrage. So very sad and I am so very sorry.

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  6. We have not come so very far, have we ... I can't fathom this decision and I can't imagine the amount of courage it takes to live with any colour of skin but white in the USA. Like Ms Moon, I am sorry.

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  7. Of course it has broken you. Fuck this country and its fucked up ways. Seriously. I'm not sorry for the profanity.

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  8. Lets pray and work towards a better world

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  9. Yes. What do we do? I spend my days pondering, my nights dreaming, trying to figure out how we fix what is so very very wrong.

    Devastating.

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  10. I don't even know what to say. I saw that video. The cop killed that man, without provocation. WTF is wrong with an entire country that embraces guns and violence? I don't understand it all.

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  11. Alas, this is the world we live in, have always lived come to think of it. Where is the outrage, where is justice. Sad world really.

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  12. Late to this, but no less sincere. There are not words to describe the deep horror and disbelief at what happened to Philandro Castile and every other black person who has been victimized so shamefully. I tell myself that more people are fighting for justice and right and kindness than there are ignorant, malignant cretins who seem bent on it, but every day that is harder to believe.

    As with everyone else, I'm so very sorry.

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