Understand that I did my best to comply with their demands while not coming off as threatening. A protester during a demonstration over the killing of George Floyd by a policeman on May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
If I ever become a hashtag, don’t assume it was intentional. George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor couldn’t have wanted to be famous this way. My paranoia about dying from police brutality is not unwarranted. You can only pretend to be human for so long until your dignity gets exposed for being nonexistent. And the numbness you feel from seeing yourself die so many times almost convinces you that the only freedom we have is death.
The moment I become a martyr, understand that racism does not live in the past. The white tiger still roams around uncaged. When you see it, don’t assume that it’s a mirage. It’s as real as the privilege you are born with and the history that can’t be erased with blood and waves. No matter how far we have come, we still carry nostalgia with us.
Systematic oppression didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation or even the civil rights movement. The mentality of seeing African Americans as fragments has persisted ever since we were counted as three-fifths of a man. The black experience involves sacrificing a part of yourself to a society that was originally designed to strip you of your inherent worth. From mental trauma to physical abuse, our bodies are constantly fighting a war on multiple fronts. Yet the videos and hashtags remind us every year that the war was never meant for us to win.
As long as evil exists, expect to see more bodies like mine show up on your timelines.
The luxury of being alive as a black person is not afforded to all of us, regardless of our efforts to adhere to a broken system. George Floyd only wanted to inhale the oxygen that everyone is entitled to as a cop pinned him down and crushed his lungs. Ahmaud Arbery was exercising outdoors in broad daylight when his life was stolen from him because of the prejudice of a white neighbor. Breonna Taylor wasn’t even given the courtesy of a knock on the door before being wrongfully killed in the midst of a narcotics investigation. As African Americans, our collective experience with oppression and inequality allows us to relate to these hashtags that were once humans. We honor their lives by sharing our experiences, having conversations, and holding protests against police brutality and other forms of racial discrimination.
Your indifference is just as guilty as whoever saw my existence as a threat. I’m sure you’re tired of having to play hero, but this damsel is already dead. Others like me are simply asking that future generations don’t add up to the body count. One is already too much.
Should I randomly get gunned down or choked out on a random Saturday morning, may the mourning of the night turn to joyful morning on Sunday. Understand that I did my best to comply with their demands while not coming off as threatening in the slightest. I was just finding sanity in the apocalypse. It’s not my fault that my footsteps are siren calls for police. I have seen enough family members become innocent corpses. I was trying not to get the sudden invite to the family reunion.
And when the algorithms in my timeline bury me six feet under, I hope your hurt turns to healing. When my face gets added to the mural of deceased image-bearers, don’t cry tears for today or remain complicit. As long as evil exists, expect to see more bodies like mine show up on your timelines and riot through the streets as another family loses a loved one to discrimination. Have your outrage and calls for change. Even comfort my family while you’re at it. But until the systems are treated, then the symptoms of a bygone age will continue to bring out the worst in us. I don’t want hashtags to become the only tombstones that memorialize us. If it ends with me, then so be it. I was tired before, but give me the honor of resting in peace.