Thursday, June 18, 2015

Stolen

Kalief Browder was arrested at 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack. He had not stolen the backpack and refused to say that he had. In a gross miscarriage of the criminal justice system, he was kept in adult jail awaiting trial for three years. He suffered untold abuse from guards and inmates, and spent months at a time in solitary confinement, before he was finally released, never having his day in court. Earlier this month, unable to shake the sadness that had stalked him since his time in prison, he killed himself.

An American Kidnapping by the brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates lays out Kalief Browder's tragic story. Coates writes, "I care not one iota what Rachel Dolezal does nor what she needs to label herself. I care solely, totally, and completely about what this society does to my son, because of its need to label him."

What gets me every time is that these dead Black boys all look like living breathing boys I know and love.

And now a church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina leaving nine Black worshippers dead. A hate crime. An act of terrorism.

This fucking world.

I have to keep my focus on the good, or I'll literally lose my mind.

Head down. Blinders on. Back to work. I have a deadline to meet.

And tomorrow, my girl's coming home.


11 comments:

  1. I woke up this morning with the greatest sense of anger, anxiety, depression, sadness. All.
    It is not dispersing.

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  2. That first paragraph----brilliant. Thank you for linking that.

    I can't wait until you get your girl. This world is too much for me today too. I can't handle this unrest and nonsense and just plain madness.

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  3. Too distressing---thanks for the link...Hugs.

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  4. Hugs to you. I feel the same as you. It's too much. Too many shootings. Too much senseless killing. Makes me want to just stay in my house.

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  5. Glad it spoke to you like it spoke to me. It reframes the world for me in ways I knew but didn't put together.

    A Pakistani-American friend messaged today asking how I can handle all the bad news all the time. I focus on the good. I read about 10-year-old boys rushing into burning buildings to save babies. And sometimes I have to put on blinders, but not today. Today I have to be all in.

    I cried a lot today. It fuels me.

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  6. Yes, keep your focus on your girl coming home. This tragic can do you in.

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  7. When bad things come near us, happen to people who are like us, live the way we do, it is so much more frightening. And suddenly the whole world seems to be full of evil. And it is. But it also is full of goodness. It always has been. We need to remember that and be part of that goodness. You are.

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  8. The whole world is in shock. Thousands of miles away, we Europeans feel it as well. The utter unspeakableness of it.

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  9. Some people are just crazy, either with unfocused rage or real, genuine insanity. The question is, what kind of society are we that we allow them to arm themselves so easily?

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  10. My heart hurts most especially for members of the black community, and for us all.

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