Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? by Alicia Garza

Author:Alicia Garza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, ebook
ISBN: 978-1-60846-684-9
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2016-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

9.

Black Parenting Matters: Raising Children in a World of Police Terror1

Eisa Nefertari Ulen

My child’s breath is a freedom song. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. The rhythmic pulse of air he powers is love, is life, is liberation. In. Out. In. Out. My child is breath. “I am here,” his body says with each inhalation. “I am alive,” his body offers with each exhalation. Each breath is a life force and each life force is a gift, is Holy. He is Divine.

He is more than mere existence. He is complex sinew, meat, blood, mind, matter, running, laughing, playing, smiling, healthy. He is boy in motion, chasing balls, jumping rivers, leaping meadows, climbing trees.

He is an idea made flesh.

He is a rebellion. A riot. A rage against the machine.

At a Black Lives Matter protest my son sounded a call: “What do we want?” He also sang the response: “Justice.” The drumbeat of our fellow marchers punctuated this question: “When do we want it?” And he knew the answer: “Now.” My son is The Revolution. This is why: Twelve million to 20 million African people were stolen across the Middle Passage.2 About half did not survive the journey.3

From 1882 to 1968, there were 3,446 recorded lynchings of Black people in the United States.4 That averages to about 40 people of African descent hanged, sliced, torched, drowned, beaten, or hacked each year.5 That averages to about three to four lynchings per month, which averages to, every week or so, one Black body lynched, one Black body clawed by white mobs.

To survive this is to be a revolution, the inheritor of revolution. We are the children of those who survived. My husband, my son and I are their promise song. Because of them, we are here, and our survival is a revolutionary act.

For white people, survival is a daily experience that is taken for granted. For African-Americans, survival is a daily act of intentionality and purpose. Survival is a daily ritual Black people must perform. Survival is item number one on a daily to-do list.

I am a Black woman on a mission. I fear police violence, the merciless criminalization of brown boys. I fear the dehumanization of Black people that makes the police so swift in their use of force.

From January 1, 2015, to May 30, 2015, at least 385 people have been shot and killed by police in the United States.6 This does not include the numbers of Americans killed while in police custody. Of the victims who were unarmed, about two-thirds were Black or Latino.

I fear more than police brutality. I also fear the lies that fuel police terror. I fear the systematic way stories about Black people’s encounters with the police are twisted and turned by the voice of the state. I fear the way the narrative is controlled by the state so that even our experiences do not belong to us.

I have experienced the terror of state forces circumscribing Black life. I have witnessed the incrimination of Black people, seen the state blame them for their marginalization.

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