| Reflections
on the Police Shooting of Michael Brown-18 |
Now, for this brief moment, you see me.
As we gather in throngs, angrily, defiantly,
desperately confronting your apathy, your arrogance, your utter disdain…you see
me.
Now, after killing me; shooting me down like a
rabid pup, leaving my body on the cold, cold ground for hours, like garbage…you hear me.
As my 18-year-old blood soaks into our concrete detention,
you fear me.
Now, as I once again face German Sheppard’s and
M-16’s held in the shaky, sweaty hands of mentally pubescent, conditioned “heroes”.…you
feel me.
I am the subject of “Today’s News”; the analysis
of stale analysis, the giant awakened by a blast of unrestrained, unnoticed and
unchecked indifference.
And you…now, you've come home…if only for the
moment.
Like absentee parents, you revisit the nightmare
you abandoned to chase “the Dream.” Where
were you while poverty and unemployment mounted…while they packed the children of your parent’s
parents in prisons, herded your kin into Gateway ghettos and stereotyped us all
into irrelevance?
Your impotent call for calm is too late, even though my blaze validates your worth.
This is the “fire next time.” It is St. Louis finally claiming
its 1960’s moment. It is the vomit that spews after a centuries-long diet of naked
injustice. It is the protruding pus from a rancid, untreated wound. It is the communal
outcry to the manifesto of systemized, antiseptic assassination.
Now, as I run your streets, trashing your QuikTrips and looting your Taco Bells; as I gag on tear gas and defiantly await rubber to turn to lead, you
see me as you've always projected me: angry, reckless, violent, out-of-control, in
need of restraint.
I am different…but not.
If only, in this brief moment, you can really see
the “me” that is us, that is we.
- Sylvester Brown, Jr. / August 10, 2014
- Sylvester Brown, Jr. / August 10, 2014
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| Photo by AP newswire |
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| Photo courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
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| Photo courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
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| Photo courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
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| Photo courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
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| Photo courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
Comments
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As for the violence that has ensued since this occurred , I ask for peace but understand the response of those who have been oppressed without a voice. There will come a time when the violence ends and that is when the true fight begins, for all the violence will serve as a prime example for those who relentlessly judge minority classes. Recognize the voices within that have been placed there by those who oppress and who aim to continue to oppress. Only then can we realize who we truly are and what we as a people seek(equality, love). I am sorry too all of those who have lost loved ones to violence. I hope for true peace for us all.