I can’t breathe were his last words. For eight minutes and 46 seconds, Mr. Chauvin kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck and for decades black people have been humiliated and discriminated against, they have knelt on us, stepped on us, disrespected us, and made a living miserable for the blacks. What did we do wrong? This question is left unanswered, as there is no justification for the brutal acts done on the blacks.
I can’t breathe, the lamentation of a black man
The way black people die in the hands of the cops is just senseless, they are deaf to our pleas, insensitive to our groans. They treat us like we are nothing, push us around like objects, accuse us falsely and punish us for crimes we didn’t commit, oh, I do not want to be reminded of the Central Park five incident, why are blacks hated so much? I really want to get an explanation for this cruelty and execution. This is really frustrating!
It is really disheartening to see that, the only way to prevent black people from dying and being hurt by the police is by having a white person betwixt. No freedom! I can’t even visualize myself protesting at the mercy of another fellow with a lighter complexion, this is the height of man’s inhumanity to man. Black people are not entitled to continually accept the inhumane, racist, white supremacist ideologies and harms done to them.
After the death of George Floyd, a death that is heartbreaking and disturbing, I could feel the rage but it wasn’t enough for me to voice out my worries for black people and the injustice being done to them. I sat down to extract and express my disappointment and pain through writing only to relent because the fury I wanted wasn’t there. Earlier on, I had this conversation with a friend about a song for heart break, I told him how I was forced to listen to the song he earlier mentioned just so I could get really angry and express the hurt I felt each time a black person is killed by the cops for no reason.
I desired to feel what it really meant to be heart broken, so I could spit out those venoms, I needed to be infuriated to properly express my disgust for racial discrimination, I thought I could create a picture of how much hurt I feel for the blacks by putting myself in the shoes of the one whose heart was broken by her lover but like my friend said, “you have never experienced heart break so you won’t really feel anything, the lyrics won’t mean much to you since you don’t understand the language of being hurt by a loved one”. Frankly speaking , if you haven’t watched your loved one being taken away unjustly by some wicked and unscrupulous entities who disguise themselves as cops protecting the people, you would think, those shouting for justice and protesting are just creating societal unrest for the people, you would see them as insane and irrational beings.
The craving to express myself persisted but the right emotion was far flung, so I considered to view the video of the young guy who implored for his life but those mischievous, inhumane, barbaric and miserable thwarts disregarded every second of pain expressed through the words ‘I can’t breath’ those signals were simple to understand and they were directly before his oppressors.
I couldn’t refrain from shedding tears as I saw human beings treating a full blown man not an animal like he was a piece of trash, and yes, I am close to getting a bit of that emotion I yearned for, I decided to picture my family in the shoes of black Americans, picture myself as a victim scared of the police and always running for my life, confined to poverty and the ghetto, treated as trash by the white man, spat on, beaten without a reason, bullied, raped and victimized.
The truth is, after this delineation, I was only able to create 10% of the experiences of the blacks. I only reached 10% of the rage, I backed it up with the echoes of George Floyd’s last words “I can’t breath”. This makes me really sad because he cried for help and relief but was ignored, he wasn’t called by his creator he was forced to die untimely and this is unjust.
This only depicts how the voices of the blacks are disregarded and for them to be heard there must be the privileged white people to stand as shields and speak out for them, very hilarious, how people applaud these white people for just realizing their humanity, understanding that colour doesn’t really matter and we all share in the eternal breath together. This sense of humanness came really late since in the past they folded their hands, closed their mouths and allowed black people die. Freddie Gray was killed, he was injured in a Baltimore Police van, Sam Dubose was just a motorist and he was shot dead by the cops, Terence Crutcher, Stephen Clark, Alton Sterling, Jamar Clark, Jeremy McDole was shot, this guy was sitting on his wheelchair for heavens sake but he was killed by a cop, Walter Scott, Eric Harris, I could go on to mention the numerous death cases caused by the police and on black people. We have done nothing wrong the only crime we committed is being born into the world as blacks, sincerely, white people really used their Privilege quite late. Though still grateful for the realization and the light brought upon the hearts of white people to fight injustice together with the blacks.
It is time for white People to fight this systemic racism and save blacks from the corrupt system. White women shouldn’t be the only ones fighting this brutality. They should show some level of human decency and respect for life, life should be revered. It is time to address this issue of discrimination, ease the fears and tension amongst the people, propagate oneness and equality, be committed to preaching one humanity, this is not just about one black man who was killed, this is about blacks who were unjustly murdered and for those who would die in the future if this is not addressed.
In the words of Angela Davis “Until the color of your skin is the target you will never understand”. White men and women should wear the shoes of black People and feel their hurts. Civilization is not about being the supreme power, a nuclear nation, richest economy, technologically inclined, powerful military rather it is about education, humanity, acceptance, equality, child care, and protection. It is about lifting others and not kneeling on them until they can’t breathe. Why should anyone be discriminated against on the basis of their skin color, racial or ethnic origin? Black lives matter!
