The Voices: The Girlfriend, The Officer, The Blackman, and The Daughter

Me

Lord, I hear their voices. I can't seem to differentiate my breath from theirs. I can feel the heat of the tears. My heart, it skips a few beats every few seconds. The space between my eyes and my forehead, it scrunches. My hands, I don't know where they should go. They tremble a bit. I'm not sure what to do with them. The blood in my body seems a few degrees closer to boiling and my senses, they are on hyper mode. I can see everything around me, happening….lightening speed. My brain isn't catching up to it all and all I hear…. Like my ear drums are a tune to the vibration…. All I hear are their voices… each one scares me in a different way.

The Girlfriend

First, her voice so calm, articulate, and poised seems surreal. As her boyfriends bloodied body sits next to hers, trying to hold on to it's last few breaths. She seems to find enough strength inside of her to report the facts "We got pulled over for a busted tail light in the back. And the police just…he killed my boyfriend. He's licensed to carry, he was trying to get his license and ID out of his pocket, and he let the officer know that he had a firearm, and the officer just shot him in the arm."

As her boyfriend moans for life beside her, her first reaction is to pull her phone out to report facts on Facebook livestream. Why she even had to think to do this is a devastating testament to the realities of 21st century America. I would have more practically imagined this man dying with his girlfriends arms around him, loving him, giving him hope, and helping him through his last moments. But not only was his life stolen, but the final love that she should have been able to provide in that moment didn't come from consolations of sympathy, strength, or care….rather she could only show him love, by, in that moment, deciding the most important thing to do was prove his innocence. So instead of her helping him fight for his life, she had to make the decision to fight for his reputation after it was all over. A task no one should ever have to take on.

The Officer

"Fuck, Fuck" he screams in a panic. This officer, likely started his day as normal, never expecting it would end up like this. Never expecting to kill a man, but he did. Every time he screamed "Fuck", what I really heard was "I fucked up." He spent several seconds trying to justify his actions, "I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand off it" . But in realizing there was no real justification, he again screams "Fuck." As the girlfriends' voice again reiterating the facts of the situation cause his blood to boil, his temples to pulsate and a few moments of thought for the closest escape route he says to her "Keep your hands where they are please." Not because he is afraid of her, but because he is afraid of himself. Because he didn't think he would ever be the one to kill the black man. He didn't think he would have the gun in his hand. Yea, he has made a couple ignorant black jokes like everyone else, but he would never consider himself a racist. He knew a few black guys on the police force and never had much problems, but subconsciously…..the hatred and fear were inside of him all along. He may not have been in love with black people, but his fear of them….well it had never been tested so fervently. And he never knew how deep his fear of that black man would be, until he was face-to-face with it. And when that fear rose up, when he reacted to it, even he was afraid of himself afterward.

The Blackman

As the emergency vehicle sirens wail in the background and the girlfriend lay with her hands cuffed, knees to the ground and forehead to the concrete, her emotions collapse --- "Lord Jesus, please don't tell me he's gone. Please Jesus 'no'. Please 'no'. Please don't tell me my boyfriends gone. He don't deserve this. " The realization that this is no longer just a scene from a reality show, but a real life horror film gravitate through my own body. As I think of that man, in that car, dying or dead and the only thing left to do is pray that Jesus serve a miracle. My soul aches thinking of my father, my brother, my husband, my boyfriend, my son, my nephew, my friend…. My black man. Him sitting in the car, unable to speak out his last words, unable to defend himself, unable to make a case for why he should be allowed to live. Thinking that if he can't speak for himself, he will go down on the list as another dead black man, that probably deserved it anyway. They will probably make a mockery of my past he may have been thinking. I'll be slandered on the TV and someone will try to prove why my life wasn't worthy anyway. My mother will be asked to speak in a press conference, with tears rolling down her eyes she will plead for justice. My sister will attend rallies but request that protesters not act in violence because, of course, we don't want to tarnish my name any further than they will already try to. I'll become a hashtag and even President Obama will know my name. I'll be famous, but my body will be in the grave. My mouth closed forever. My future a closed book, but my legacy up to the courts decision. Never able to make the case for my own life.

The Daughter

Yes there was a baby back there. We don't hear her voice for a while, but it's there, strong in its youth and purposeful in its hope. "I'm gonna get my mommy purse," she exclaims to the cop as he attempts to move her out of the way. Move her out of the way? She has already seen more than a child should ever have to endure at that age. Maybe you should have moved her out of the way before you cuffed her mother. Maybe you should have closed her eyes before you shot the man her mother loved in front of her. Maybe you should have noticed her silent figure in the back seat, quietly watching, waiting, and taking in the moment that will forever surge her memory and change the trajectory of her own life. Her innocence stolen within 3 minutes. "I'm scared mommy", she says. That these memories will seer a deep seed of hate in her is now our new fear. That she will become a statistic of the female kind, afraid of life outside of the walls of her home, feeling no worth for her body or mind, and losing herself within the fatal memory of her past until there is nothing left for her to stand on. We fear that as she age and the days of her youth are behind her, she close up those past memories like a dark seated figure in a long dark hallway, always there ominously but not always visible, causing her future to die with "The Blackman" in the front seat of that car.

But as the clip comes to an end, we have this pierce of hope shine through as the youngest freedom fighter herself, in hearing her mother scream in agony, fear, and sadness emphatically says, "It's okay mommy I'm here. It's okay. I'm right here with you."

We

And with her final words, we, the people of black America, white America, and in-between America need to stand up and say "It's okay. I'm here. I'm here with you. Dear Black man and black woman, I will no longer let you fight alone. I will no longer let you cry alone. I cry with you, I pray with you and I take action with you because I too believe #blacklivesmatter."