“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I don’t feel incredibly comfortable writing about the verdict in the Michael Brown case, but I feel equally awkward not writing about it. A child died, ultimately, no one will be held accountable in the eyes of the law.
Let that sink in, a life gone and no one serving time, but his parents in a lifetime of “Why our son?”
I am in Orlando reminding my daughters not to touch every single surface because we are in one big, pulsing, germ dome. Other parents are teaching their sons not to look suspicious or be in an environment where they might be accidentally murdered, because they are in a giant, pulsing country of potential harm.
Here’s the thing, I’d throw rocks. I would throw batteries, hurl obscenities and demand justice. No doubt in my mind. I am not the grieving parent, so where does that leave me? I have the obscenities dancing in my head, but the layers between me and the fiery center of this grief are significant. I can hurt and rail, as we all should, because this is a fundamentally broken system. However, I can take my white privilege, or, if that term makes you uncomfortable, just look at it as a place in this world, world where young people are being killed, and say, “No more.”
Long after the networks are broadcasting carefully edited clips of teargas and looting, we can address the other kind of looting, the stealing of young lives in the name of law? Preserving the peace? We can say that we do in fact see race and that we see that it’s long since overdue to acknowledge that black people have been getting the short stick sideways.
Michael Brown is gone, our resolve should persist.
“Race is there. You’re tired of hearing about it? Imagine how fucking exhausting it is living it.”
Jon Stewart
Thank you for saying what we are all feeling.
Thank you, Nicole. I hope you got the break that you were looking for and I so appreciate you sharing this post.
Amanda,
No more. Yes. That is the hope.
Your piece reminded me of Gandhi’s words, “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.”
Thank you for writing this post.
Yes. I hope the higher court is heard.
Just this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_7ErkQFduQ
There is no justice in Ferguson. Only the worst kind of injustice, the kind that guts a family for all the days of their lives. Thank you for giving voice and expression to the thoughts and feelings of so many who are to angry or inarticulate to do so.
Your warranted exasperation is palpable here.
Nothing else to say because you nailed it.
So well said.
Amanda,
I love and respect your writing. But I am just wondering if you read the findings of the grand jury.
Shelly