If I hear one more person criticize Black youth on the impolite manner in which they reacted to the realization that at any moment they could be snatched off of their bicycles and murdered by people who have the right and the privilege to do so... I am going to scream. No wait. I am already screaming!!! If you snap my brother's neck, after you've murdered by cousin for jaywalking, after to beat my aunt in the street, after you've chocked my pleading uncle and my pleading friend, after your scalded my neighbor to death (and then made his friend clean up the flesh), after your reckless drunken, off-duty murder of my niece was dismissed, after you used your taser to murder my pleading father, after you thought you used your taser when it was really your gun (because your privilege allows you to say you can't tell the difference) to murder my nephew ... YOU DO NOT GET TO TELL ME HOW THE HELL TO REACT! If you have the means to leap to a scene to report rampant lawlessness and destruction, theft and arson, then leap to report the lawless murder of unarmed Black men every 28 hours. Jump up and cover the calculated destruction of the Black community. Run over here and talk about the theft of dignity, respect and lives. Get your cameras out and cover the criminal setting of our hearts on fire when our sons (or those who could be) lay in the street dead and vilified but guilty of little more than being Black. But do not tell me to form an orderly line to the right of you and to wait, always to wait, choose my words carefully and wisely less I offend your privileged ears and draft you a nice note politely expressing my concerns! Oh, and once you are there... tell the truth. Cover the White people looting and setting things afire. Question the prosecutors who allow the daily murder of me to go unchecked. Ask the youth who spontaneously combusted after being doused with the gasoline and matches of their horrific, terrifying reality what they think their life expectancy is. Apologize to them for leaping to the scene so very, very late. Acknowledge that they fight bullets with rocks and set themselves on fire because they know what would happen if they truly went after the targets of their justified rage. Apologize to them to affirming the worthlessness of their lives by not covering their murders and then criticizing their reaction to them. Oh, and while Black youth who protest in reaction to imposed poverty, hopelessness, and the constant threat of death are vilified, White youth who defile wounded veterans and the American flag in reaction to nothing more than beer consumption are called 'fine young men and women...' (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/24/univ-florida-frat-expels-3-over-insulting-spitting-at-wounded-vets/) What the what?
When we rely on our oppressors to tell our stories we suffer. #SupportBaltimore #SupportFerguson #SupportChicago #SupportCleveland #SupportFlorida #SupportNewYork #BlackLivesMatter #TelltheTruth
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AuthorT'Keyah Crystal Keymah Archives
January 2016
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