(Photo from the Taylor Family)
First: I can’t stop thinking about knees on necks.
Yesterday was George Floyd’s funeral. He was buried next to his mother, who he called out for repeatedly in the last eight minutes and forty-six seconds of his life.
I turned 36 one thousand years ago, on March 13, 2020. It was a Friday. I’d had friends over the night before, a small gathering that turned out to be The Last Supper before COVID-19 arrived in her vengeance and we began sheltering in place. It was all still so new. We still hugged each other, spent the evening mask-less. We shared plates and serving utensils and we touched the same door handles and light switches and we laughed in close proximity to each other as we huddled around the kitchen table scraping tacos off plates into faces. We still thought the whole thing was being blown out of proportion, we were still wrapped in our bubble of unknowing, the privilege of being a group of people who can generally live our lives safe and protected from harm—be it the harm of an unknown virus, because all of us were easily able to stay at home without worrying about our livelihoods, or, the harm of living in a state whose systems are stacked against some of us, but not others.
I originally had plans to head out of town that weekend. I cancelled everything for obvious reasons, and, suddenly faced with nothing to do on my birthday I was feeling sad and sorry for myself. I did some work. Lounged about at home with the dog. Took myself out for a solitary pizza. Ate chocolate ice cream with sea salt sprinkled on top. Came home and watched a movie in bed. Slept the sleep of someone who has never once had to worry if an officer will place their knee on my neck or hunt me down and execute me while I’m out for a run or riddle my body with bullets as I dream of hot springs and road trips.
Do you know what else happened the night of March 13? Yeah. While I was wallowing in my birthday blues like a baby, 2,300 miles away in Louisville, Breonna Taylor was murdered by cops while she slept in her own bed. Her killers have still not been arrested.
Can we just pause for a second.
(Inhale, exhale)
My first instinct was to list all the things we know about her—her age, her profession, her dreams, that she was a beloved daughter and friend—but that feels like I’m trying to convince you of something. That I’m somehow trying to provide evidence as to why she should still be alive. That feels yucky. No one should have to explain to anyone why Breonna Taylor deserved to live her life. Or George Floyd. Or Ahmaud Arbery. Or Tony McDade, or all the thousands upon thousands of others, most of whose names we’ll never know.
Losing someone before their time, especially due to situations that should never have happened in the first place, is a specific sort of ache. And I acknowledge that though the ache I feel might run adjacent to, or alongside, the ache of Black people in this country, it will never be equal, because I will never understand what it’s like to have to deal with the omnipresent low-grade terror of fearing for my safety just for trying to exist. I will never understand the depth of this grief, this persistent mourning of not only present day losses, but the losses of centuries worth of ancestors.
If you’re just waking up, it’s going to be uncomfortable, and inconvenient. You are going to feel shitty and complicit and embarrassed that it took you this long to open your eyes. I kindly ask that instead of letting any of that stop you, you get over yourself, get in the game and keep playing forever, or until all BIPOC in this country are no longer dehumanized and we’ve successfully made reparations and dismantled all systems of oppression and replaced them with a culture of care and equity. Even if this means that you die before any of these things actually come to fruition. We can’t burn out. We have to take the longview.
Friends, I am calling on us. We are duty bound. The onus is on us. We have to stay in the fight, even after things die down, which inevitably they will. I am no expert. But if any of you want to talk, I am here, and I promise I’ll be patient. I will point you toward resources, and, I ask that as you educate yourselves, you donate money to support the work of people you are learning from.
Please sign this petition if you haven’t already: https://justiceforbreonna.org/
Stay angry. Stay safe. Take care of each other. Remember: We belong to each other.
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