It
took a long time for me to fall asleep last night following the
Zimmerman verdict. Sure, I was angry. However my thoughts weren't on
Trayvon Martin. I fell asleep thinking of Sharon Louise Arter who
died when she was 3 years old in Cleveland Ohio, the only city in
which she'd ever lived.
Sharon
was not famous or infamous. She was my cousin, daughter of my
mother's sister, her middle name the same as my mom's middle name.
Sharon's death wasn't unusual or sensational. She got hit by a car.
She ran into the street not realizing how quickly danger can invade a
3 year old's world. She didn't stand a chance really. Happens all
the time in car crazy America.
What
sticks in my head about my forever little cousin is not that she
died. I can barely remember her face, only have one picture of her in
a Sunday dress, another light eyed blondie in the family.
No,
not Sharon. The one image that I have from that time was of a man on
the street, a total stranger, watching our funeral procession pass
down Euclid. A pale, thinly built guy, about 5 and a half feet tall,
wearing a gray plaid shirt and dark pants, white socks and dark
shoes. He was a happy fellow, jumping up and down, doing a kind of
jig on the sidewalk and clapping his hands, singing a made up song;
“another nigger dead, whoo-eee! Another nigger dead, nigger dead,
nigger dead!”
His
song came flooding back into my memory with the “not guilty”
verdict rendered for George Zimmerman. “Another nigger dead, another nigger dead, another nigger dead”
cause for celebration in America past, present and apparently for the
foreseeable future.
Another
all white jury has reinforced the pecking order keeping white America safe once again. Young black men
and black people in general, are at the bottom, after pit bulls and
other domestic animals. Black kid walking past your house, shoot him
because it was obvious he was thinking about breaking in. “All that
concrete, he was armed, don cha see”. Kid eyeballs you on the
train, shoot him because he looked like the guy who was thinking of
mugging you last week as you walked in your neighborhood. Go ahead
shoot, great time to try out that new piece with your new concealed
carry license.
And
just like honorary white man and wanna be rent a cop Zimmerman profiled Martin, the media,
police, all the self appointed race hustlers, as well as the rest of
American society profiled the Black community by calling for calm in
the wake of the verdict “don't ya'll riot now, ya hear? Be calm, ”
as if violence is the only answer around which we as a community can
ever coalesce.
“It's
gon be alright” Pray about it. It's Sunday go to church and let
gawd handle it for you.
Talk
to your twitter friends. Vent your anger on Facebook. Sign any
number of overnight petitions materializing from out of the blue,
uselessly disappearing as quickly as they arrived.
But
don't try to vote. No we don't want that. In fact, we fixed that for
you too. You just need to be good color uh Afro Americans and mind
ya place now ya hear.”
Yep...another
nigger dead, another nigger dead, another nigger dead, another nigger
dead...
SOSDD
(same old shit, different day)
