How Many More?

by with No Comment CultureFeaturedGen Z

I constantly find myself mourning people I’ve never met. The eulogies are the same, but with different names. This time, his name is Ahmaud Arbery, aged 25 and was about to be 26 on May 8th. 

He too fell victim to his skin, the same color as the chocolate that his murderers probably like to eat. Only in the form of candy is Blackness palatable to racism. 

Ahmaud was just out for his daily run. Many people do this; even through this quarantine people are still outside exercising. But isn’t the perception of Black boys and Black men running that they’re ‘usually running from something’? 

On February 23rd in Brunswick, Georgia, Gregory and Travis McMichael were playing vigilante the way George Zimmerman did. Boy and man alike, neither Trayvon nor Ahmaud ‘could have been up to any good’ just running or going to the corner store. 

The McMichaels saw a Black man running in their neighborhood, which couldn’t have been for a reason as innocent and simple as him exercising. 

There had been a series of burglaries in the McMichaels’ neighborhood. I can understand being suspicious of people coming and going that don’t live there. However, would they have pursued him in a truck with trigger happy fingers and guns had he been White instead? 

The way a person runs for leisure and exercise looks entirely different from someone running from a crime, or their death. I suppose it all looked the same to the McMichaels. So yes, Ahmaud was a Black man running from something alright. 

They were the ones armed and dangerous. The McMichaels grabbed a shotgun and a handgun before jumping in their truck to follow Ahmaud. Ahmaud was armed only with the prayer that every Black parent has: that he returns home the same way he left out. Alive. 

What baffles me is how long it took for the McMichaels to be arrested. Two and a half months after the incident, these murderers were just arrested on Thursday, May 7th, and charged with murder and aggravated assault. This only happened because a video of the murder was finally brought to light. 

What baffles me is how William Bryan, the man who took a video of the murder, took this long to turn it over to authorities. He let the McMichaels walk around as free men for two and half months more. He let Ahmaud’s murder almost be waved off as “self-defense.” 

I’m not saying that he and his family deserve the death threats that they’re receiving. I don’t know how I feel about him being charged with murder either. Withholding evidence in an ongoing investigation? That is something I’d charge him with because there is absolutely no reason why he felt it to be better to just hold onto this footage of Ahmaud’s last moments for months. 

I understand that he was afraid in the moment the murder occurred. I would be too. Just taking the video was probably the best he could do because he put his safety and his family’s safety first. But what about Ahmaud’s safety? What about the family that Ahmaud won’t be able to create because he is dead? What about the goals and dreams and aspirations that this man had that cannot be fulfilled? 

We have a right to be outraged. Racial profiling is continuing to cut down Black bodies. How many more need to die before it is safe for us to be Black and American? Will we ever be safe in our Blackness? Will we ever be American?

Similar Read: Ahmaud Murdered… What’s Next? Who’s Next?

Justice for Ahmaud?

by with 5 Comments CultureFeaturedRace Relations

[New Contributor]

February 23, 2020 – I don’t remember much about that day for myself. It was a Sunday so I probably went to church, came home and got in some comfortable clothes, and spent the rest of the day on the couch doing much of nothing. Within a couple of weeks, I’d be on lockdown in my home for the foreseeable future, unsure of when my life would get back to normal, if that ever was to exist again. It was on that day that 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery decided to go for a jog in his Brunswick, GA neighborhood. Unbeknownst to him, a father and son would be out on the same road that day looking for trouble. You see, they kept their loaded shotguns in the back of the truck I’m sure just in case they passed some wandering deer, possums, or for the occasional menacing ni**er. Of course, they say that this Black man, jogging down the street trying to tend to his own health, “matched the description” they say of a burglary suspect. According to them, that’s when they grabbed their guns and decided to leave the house in an effort to pursue him on a “citizen’s arrest.” What happens from there is anyone’s guess, and the coward filming appears to be more concerned with catching the action than preserving a life considering that he later shared the video with friends bragging about what had happened.

I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time combing back through all of the details and facts that we can find on every major and minor news outlet. I don’t have the time to contemplate why it’s appropriate for the state of Georgia to allow people to get a haircut during the Covid-19 pandemic, but conveniently can’t find the means to arrest or bring charges against 2 men who have spent the last 2 months at home, alive, believing that they had every right to pursue another human being and kill him without any question. I’m sure that, after a couple of weeks, they assumed they were in the clear and that nothing would be done. The father and son had probably even turned their attention to protesting the loss of their own “freedom” during a time where people were dying, because it wasn’t directly affecting them so they wanted the privilege to move around freely again. After all, it’s their American right to do so!

My questions at this time are many, my anger is at a boiling point and I don’t have enough energy to process frustration. Instead, I find myself asking- 

“Was Ahmaud not allowed to be scared when 2 men rolled up in a pick-up truck pointing guns at him?”

“Is it possible to fight back when strangers come out of nowhere and interrupt your peaceful jog by pointing a long gun at you and screaming at you in a way that must’ve rendered you confused and in shock?”

“Why is a very real threat to people who look like me always laced with questions and doubt, as if it’s some sort of made up, imaginary fantasy?”

“Are we still unable to acknowledge the history of domestic terrorism towards Blacks in this country? The kind that makes sure every Black child is given “the speech” by parents and elders from the time they are able to listen, and doesn’t stop even into adulthood because now a wife is also concerned that her husband may not make it home safely.

“Was my ability to feel pain stripped away when my ancestors had their children stolen from them at an auction block, never to be held or nurtured again? Am I still supposed to be that numb?”

“When do I get to feel what I want to feel- fear, hurt, frustration, pain- and express it without being labeled as “angry” and “black.”

I can’t say for sure what will happen this time. If the District Attorney is suggesting that it is taken to a grand jury, I can’t respectfully thank him for his consideration and walk away expecting justice to be served. What I am sure of, however, is that the courtesy that the Black community has extended to those who have hurt us over the past 400 years is wearing thin and patience is running out. I am educated and experienced, and this weekend will receive a doctorate degree. Yet, I personally will think twice about the vengeance I withhold, and will no longer be polite in my stance when the death Black and Brown people is a movie that can be played over and over again without even a warning label, as if to desensitize us all to the fact that Ahmaud was even human. Ask yourself when was the last time you even saw a video of a dog being killed that didn’t come with a warning or of “graphic violence and animal cruelty”? I’ll wait…