Endangered Species: A Ferguson Reflection

ENDANGERED defined:

Endangered but Protected...

[en-deyn-jerd]

Adjective

1. threatened with danger
• "endangered lives of the coal miners"
2. threatened with extinction
• "the bald eagle may be endangered"
3. threatened with danger and with extinction
• "African American men are endangered"

That's how I felt when I woke up the day after the decision that Officer Wilson was no indicted on any charges for the death of Michael Brown.  I watch online from the aerial view how the town of Ferguson had smoke and fire billowing from it.  I watch how I-44 was blocked off and hundreds of people protesting their anger and frustrations about the verdict.  My stomach started to sour and my mind began to malaise.  I began to feel that "not again" feeling.  African American males are punished with death.  

My wife is 15 weeks pregnant.  We don't know the temptation of the baby, but today I find myself tempted to pray, "Lord, let it not be a boy." That's pretty messed up huh? The fact that I don't want a son growing up in this society with his skin tone and with the reputation that this country has with its treatment of Black men is clouding up the God-Given joy of having a child.  He would look like me, and I today would be both proud and ashamed.  Proud that something like that could be produced from my wife and I, and ashamed because I will feel limited in my ability to protect him.

He would be on the endangered list, as I am.

My lament isn't a cover-up for anger, because I am definitely angry.  Very angry! I keep playing the scenario in my mind, wondering how 6-10 shots could come off as self-defense.  I tried to figure out how an unarmed man would reach into the car of a police officer knowing the consequences.  I wonder HOW IN THE HELL would anybody who is of African descent and who's ancestors have been here for more than 3 generations would try to ACCOST a police officer, UNARMED WITHOUT THINKING THAT DEADLY RETALIATION WOULD NOT HAPPEN?!?! I've grown up here and there's NO WAY, NOOO WAAAY we as Black folk are taught that to be correct behavior.  It goes against the DIRECTIVE of SURVIVAL of the BLACK COMMUNITY to do such a thing! 

But that is what is believed.  A jury believed it.  They judged the circumstance like they were replay officials for a a football game. No indisputable evidence.

Of course there's no disputable evidence.  The strongest disputable evidence is buried 6 feet in Ferguson, MO.  The dead can't testify, give an account, communicate a different narrative.  The cop has the benefit of the doubt, the system on his side, and the deeply passed privileged that he works on the side of the law, which protects everyone and everyone should adhere to.  The problem with this law is that no every feels protected by it, and adherence has caused death just as much as crime seems to.

I'm not excited to be a black man today.  I'm nervous to birth one. I'm hopeless to encourage one.  I'm nauseous to know that others may assume me dangerous or justifiably killed one day.

Endangered and Not Protected

If I had a wish, it would be for those who are not African American or Black to have 24 hours as one. In those 24 hours they would experience without death all of the fears and concerns that many of us experience on a daily basis.  They would have the ability to hear all of the assumptions unspoken about themselves.  They would see every concerning glance, every car door locked, every purse clutched, every flinch when they reach out, every eye roll when they aren't moving or doing things quick enough. That'd be an interested experiment...