My Life Matters

(This is a speech I wrote with the intention of saying it aloud before the BLM + Pride interviews started, but now I've found something different to do with it. Very personal and I wrote it a few days after the protests started.)

When I was a kid I used to salute cops I saw on the street. I was taught from books, to TV shows, to kids’ films that the cops were the “hero” of any given story. They could do no wrong.

There was always a bad guy to catch, a heist to bust, or a conspiracy to blow wide open. In trouble? Call the police! Cat stuck in a tree? A friendly neighborhood cop would be happy to help. Lost and trying to find your way home? Just ask your nearest officer and he’ll point you in the right direction.

We were told to trust them. To put all of our faith into them because they wanted to protect us and uphold the American ideals we held onto so desperately. So tightly. 

The narrative goes a little screwy from here. Some things just don’t make sense. A 13 year old boy shot by a cop? Never! A woman shot in her sleep? That would never happen! A cop kneeling on a man’s neck until… Wait, wait. No, that can’t be right. That isn’t what I know a cop is at all.

A cop is friendly and open and looks at you with a kind smile. “Howdy, having a good day today?” That’s what I thought they’d be like. Maybe a little cautious. Maybe a little overly prepared, but…!

I supposed I was getting a little ahead of myself. I didn’t finish from when I was a kid.

When I was 13, riding my bike to school a cop pulled me over and tried to ticket me for not wearing a helmet. Keep in mind that it was probably against the law, but I’d never seen anyone get stopped before for something like this. Also; I was 13, so I didn’t know much of anything. Not even my address.

The way he spoke to me struck a cord with me. It was as if it wasn’t about the helmet at all. The look in his eyes and way he talked down to me—the general tone of dismissiveness in his voice was perfectly matched by the disappointment when he realized he couldn’t stick me for something. Just like that he left and I was late to school.

But the damage was done.

Slowly, the salutes gave way to cold shoulders and missed glances. I knew something was wrong. Something had changed. I just didn’t know how deeply it ran.

Not even a year later my aunt, a black woman, had to call the police on her roommate—who was white. It’s funny how my mom and I got that news, actually. My aunt was calling us from jail. She’d been arrested for trespassing in her own house.

Of course they let her go when they realized the house was actually you know, in her fucking name. But what if they hadn’t? What if they’d shot her first? The fact I had that thought alone made me utterly nauseous.

I had that same feeling watching that criminal murder George Floyd in cold blood. No human’s veins could be so bitterly bitten by bifrost. Not someone with an ounce of humanity.

It’s not easy to understand what this is to a white person, so let me let you in on something. A woman was beaten THEN killed because she didn’t use the turn signal. Me, my mother, my roommate, a FUCK TON of my friends could be killed for ANYTHING at ANY time and I’m tired of living in that fear whenever I see one of their cars on the road.

Not just for a ticket but for my life.

When my roommate tells me he’s prepared for the event he’s pulled over—that he knows what to say so THEY WON’T KILL him. When I accept that on those long winding roads at night in the middle of nowhere and it’s just a cop and me that I could be sexually assaulted like countless others and he MIGHT JUST LET ME LIVE AFTER.

We have a problem.

We didn’t start the fire. They did.

We let the fires wash over us as we sat in it. Roasting quietly like good little negro boys and girls. But sadly, we’ve all turned bitter now. We’ve all turned bitter now. Turned angry now—angry still.

If you think you’re still in control you are mistaken. It’s our fire to use now.

After all you gave it to us.

So let the precincts burn and let the panthers feast on roasted pork.

Seasoned with hate, based in anguish, threaded through the eyes of every black brother and sister who’s lost a loved one for nothing.

“Thoughts and prayers” going out to those so called heroes.