Doran: Have You Heard About The Black Man That Was Killed?

Kelly Doran 


Have you heard about the Black Man that was killed? 

Which One? 

My point exactly. Which One? Are we talking about Trayvon Martin? Are we talking about Ahmaud Arbery? Are we talking about George Floyd? Are we talking about Emmett Till or Tamir Rice, 14 and 12 when they were murdered?

I’m talking about ALL of them. We see Minneapolis in flames, their police station torched and their police arresting reporters from CNN live on air. We see community after community ripped apart by violence, brutality and rage. Rage that comes after senseless murder. 

Only because we have the tapes, we see the videos in this day and age of technology, not only the communities where these injustices are happening see what is going on, but the world sees. 

We see you. 

We see the victims. We see the police. We see the redneck in a pick up truck chasing down Black Men in the street. We see the videos of white women calling the police, not even realizing what kind of danger they are putting those lives in, to the Ramble in Central Park because they don’t like being told by a Black Man to put their dogs on a leash. 

I’d like to say these are unprecedented times in the killings of Black men in America, but it has always been this way. The difference is visibility. In one click, the world sees. We see the moment when Philando Castile is bleeding the deepest red from his bullet  wounds inflicted by the police over a broken taillight, with his girlfriend and baby in the back of the car. We see him tell the officers that he does have a firearm and that he is not reaching for it. 

We see the aftermath on both dashcam and his girlfriends Facebook Live. it is devastating, leaving trauma in its wake. 

We’ve tried peaceful protest- ‘Merica didn’t like that. We rage- ‘Merica really don’t like that. What else can we do at this point? White Men can walk up to their State Capitols with AR-15s and that's just fine. But a Black Man selling CD’s on the sidewalk equals death. 

I am a white woman in my 30’s but I See You. I use my voice to let everyone know we see you and we do not want this America. I use my voice to URGE all to NOT become desensitized to the video that we see. EACH one, and every one not caught on tape, gives us the responsibility to say no more. We’ve got to stand together to fight this epidemic of cold blooded murder in the street where we live. Somethings gotta give here.
 
Racism is systemic, built in structurally, in America. Please educate yourself. Please question everything you think you know about Racism in America. Please think about what you can do with your voice to say no more. 

America will be a better America if you do. 

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