Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Stop fucking killing us


I need a break. I can't keep writing about brutalized Black bodies, dead Black men, cut down while going about their everyday lives by men and women sworn to protect and serve. The latest tragedy occurred ten miles down the road from the courthouse where We The People are spending millions to stage a month long trial to decide if a White cop who we all witnessed choking the life out of an unarmed, handcuffed Black man on a Minneapolis street should be answerable for committing murder.

And now, in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was on his way to the car wash, his girlfriend in the car beside him. The cops said they pulled him over because of a deodorizer hanging from his rear view mirror. I remember a year ago when my own nephew was pulled over for a dream catcher hanging from his rear view mirror, his heart hammering as he placed his hands on the steering wheel where the cops could see them. My nephew drives with his license and papers on the dashboard so he wont have to reach for them if a cop pulls him over. This sweet faced kid was terrified, wondering if he would survive the encounter, as I imagine Daunte Wright might also have worried when he called his mom to say he was being pulled over. Now his one-year-old son will have to grow up without his father.

The cops devised other reasons for detaining Daunte after the fact, none of them warranting this young man's death. An accident, the cops are saying. The cop meant to fire her taser, not her gun. Fuck that. I can't. I watched the video of Daunte's mother and father being interviewed on ABC this morning as tears washed down my face. The pain in his parents' eyes. It's too much. 

And just one night before in Virginia, a Black army lieutenant in uniform, was signaled by cops to pull over for, as it turned out, no reason. He clicked on his hazard lights and kept driving till he could pull over in a well lit area. This apparently enraged the cop, who shouted that the army man was fixing to “ride the lightening” as he pepper sprayed his face, despite his hands being in the air. That well lit gas station with video cam possibly saved the army man's life. After being dragged out his car, battered and abused, he was sent on his way with no charges. I'm worn out by it all. The Black men I love are in random danger from law enforcement every time they walk out the door. I can't say enough prayers for their safety. I'm just done.


 



20 comments:

  1. WTF is wrong with the world? With the police? That this is allowed to happen again and again and again?

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  2. I'm just sick of it. The cop that murdered Duante has been on the force for decades. Tell me she couldn't tell just by the weight of the loaded Glock vs. the weight of a taser.

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  3. Yes... it really needs to fucking stop. This is an unbearable cycle of murder by cop, and it needs to stop. I stand with you. I scream with you. I weep with you.

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  4. And even though we cannot take another one of these deaths, they keep on happening. And we keep saying we can't. And we do. And it's all more than too much.

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  5. So many loving hearts shattered again.

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  6. Yes. We need to stop the violence, deal with the racism and stop profiling...it is just insane.

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  7. I read this last night and I didn't have any words. I still don't. I don't think I ever will.
    All I know that in a million years no one would pull me over for having anything hanging from my rear view mirror. And then murder me.

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  8. Enraged. There is no other response. I love you.

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  9. These killings make no sense. Two sweet babies in that first photo - forever hurt. I am so angry and sad and sorry about this. What can I do?
    Please stay safe.

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  10. Impossible, impossible. We are watching in complete disbelief and sadness.

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  11. it's horrible. and why would she even have needed to taze the man. a year of fucking massive protests and they haven't learned or changed a goddamn thing. I did read today that they charged her with 2nd degree manslaughter. not that that means anything. and that cop in Arizona that killed the man on the ground begging for his life got rehired. every cop in every police department in this country needs to be investigated and all the racist white supremacists weeded out. I did read one department? one state? has removed the indemnity for cops who kill. a tiny step forward.

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  12. Fucking stop it, indeed. No one, not a single human, needs to be pulled over for an expired tag. Let the DMV send the person a text. No stops for any reason that is not life and death because it's terrifying and inherently racist. Years ago I was pulled over for a little beaded thing that one of my kids made, hanging from my mirror. I was not tased. I was not shot. White privilege. Honestly, I don't see that much has changed since Rodney King. I lived in L.A. then. Here I am in Minneapolis now. Same. Same. Fuckery. Complete fuckery.

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  13. Feeling very sorry and hoping things improve. Maybe. Slowly, but maybe. Words, as they say, are not enough.

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  14. It's sickening. The cop was meant to have used the tazer? My arse. (As we say in the UK, when we know it's a complete lie).

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  15. Stop fucking killing us. Nothing else need be said. (Nerd Girl)

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  16. This. Has. Got. To. Fucking. Stop. There was NO reason to Taze that young man let alone shoot him over a simple traffic stop. Two more things: there was NO way that cop didn't know the difference between a Taser and a Glock, she had been a cop for two decades, and stop someone for a car freshener on a mirror? Really? This sounds like straight up harassing a black person for no damn reason other than they can. I am sick to death of this crap, just sick. People have all sorts of things hanging from their rearview mirrors and do not get stopped for it.

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  17. Breaks my heart to watch these children lying in their own blood, and no one comforts them at all. Watching Adam Toledo, who was no longer a threat at all, and that officer did nothing, no hand on his arm, just watch them die. Just like Tamir Rice here in Cleveland. Have you ever read Kids Who Die by Langston Hughes? Sadly fits today as when it was written all those years ago.

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