2020

My heart is racing, my palm sweaty. I don’t want to, but I have to go. I have to get out of my bubble, my comfort zone. Thoughts race through my mind. I kiss my wife and daughter goodbye.  I get in my car, take a deep breath, push the start button, and start driving. I live in a gated community, and as I approach the gate to exit, my heart rate goes up again.  It sounds like I am going on a mission, a dangerous mission, but I am only going to the store to buy groceries for the family. We are dealing with so many uncertainties, race relations, election demonstrations, police misconduct, and Covid19. Am I afraid of contracting the virus? Concerned, but I am taking the necessary precautions. My anxiety stems from the possibility that someone may confront me for no reason other than I am a black man. I may be stopped, assaulted; I may lose my life simply because I am a black man. I am more afraid of an encounter with the wrong officer, wrong person than I am of contracting the virus. This is my reality.  How did we get here?  Let us rewind to January 2020.  

Injustice in America

           On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old African-American man, was pursued and fatally shot while jogging near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia. No arrests until May

  March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department officers while asleep in her own bed. 

            May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota while being arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase cigarettes. A bill later determined to be real. Office Derek Chauvin, a caucasian police officer, knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 45 seconds while Floyd was handcuffed, face down, and pleading for his life. Repeatedly saying those words, “I CAN’T BREATHE,” begging “Please men, you are killing me” and calling for his dead mother.  The same words “I CANT BREATHE”  that was spoken by Eric Gardner On July 17, 2014, when Officer Daniel Pantaleo choked him with enough force that it triggered a “lethal cascade” of events, ending in a fatal asthma attack. He was accused of selling untaxed cigarettes. The same words were spoken six years prior – “I CAN’T BREATHE.” Someone has opened pandora’s box, and there is no closing it anymore. However, with the opening of the box comes unexpected responses from others. This time we really get to know who our friends are. There is a great divide between people based on the color of their skin, and it has finally become a topic that can no longer be ignored.