Mirrors

The faces of those of us who are killed without reason are mirrors.

Of course, I have always seen my uncles and aunts and cousins and neighbors and family friends in these stories: their physical features, their smiles, their illness, their caution, their smart mouths, their tiredness, the indiscretions of their lives--minor and major--that are exploited by the media to justify their murders. It has always hurt to know that chance is all that is keeping strangers from vilifying the people I love: from othering them into criminals who deserve to die.

I, like so many Black people living in America, have carried that weight around for as long as I can remember. My father sometimes laughed when he relayed the story of a police officer coming to our door when I was little more than a toddler. When he opened the door and I saw, from the living room, who was behind it, I came running on my toddler legs to inform the tickled officer that "My daddy didn't do anything!" I actually recall this incident. I demanded, with every ounce of authority one can muster in less than a decade on God's Earth that this officer just "Leave us alone."

The summer that Trayvon Martin was murdered caught me like a carnival mirror. I taught three teenage boys with variations of the name "Trayvon" at summer school that year. One Trayvon was, by far, my favorite that summer: bright, funny, fair-minded, a bit cheeky and very resolute. I love that type of kid, but I also know society is hard on you when you're clever and strong-willed and intelligent and Black. That summer, it sometimes literally hurt to call my Trayvons' names when they raised their hands to speak in class, and it hurt even more to listen to their experiences and read their written work. I could not help but think of the Trayvon we lost. It is hard to explain that feeling.

As an educator, I believe it is my responsibly to help develop clear-eyed, socially and self aware young people who can enter society in an informed, cautious and nuanced way. When you teach sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen year old children who are toeing the line between childhood and and adulthood, it seems like an even more pressing duty. Kids are so witty at that age--brimming with sarcasm, observational humor and joy. As an educator--and, also, as a mother and as someone who was once a child--every part of me wants to preserve that joy: to laugh with young people and encourage their laughter. But, sometimes, I also responded to their laughter with a caveat. At times, I felt the need to warn these beautiful children that there were certain things they could say aloud in my classroom because it was a safe space, but that most of America is not safe.

I tried to teach them to love America and the culture and policy it has yielded. I warned that sometimes these things will seem that they aren't intended for them at all--but that, paradoxically, they should hold on to the idea that these things are equally theirs. And, no, it isn't indoctrination. Black kids have already developed keen double-consciousness--an awareness of a different type of strange and distorted mirror--before they've ever read a word of or allusion to Du Bois.

The summer that ended the life of Sandra Bland was the first time I could recall seeing clear mirrors of my girlfriends and myself in these stories. HBCU alumna and BGLO member, worked her way through college. Clearly in transition, but clearly prepared to do whatever it took. Hard-working. Tenacious. Willing to make a jump across the country for the third time in her life for the opportunity of a lifetime. Upwardly mobile. Socially aware. Community-minded. Involved in student outreach. Actively making her better tomorrow while doing the same for others. She got the same reach-back-as-you-climb message we all did, and she was victim of the same old nonsense. Whether a George, a Sandra or a Trayvon, there is no guaranteed asylum for Black America. We are all we have, and, too often, the only ones able to see those who were lost clearly. So, we must continue to look intimately into the faces of those that we lose. And, having seen one another, we must fight to make sure that the rest of the world sees us, also. It has been 34 days since Maurice Gordon was murdered. It has been 104 days since Breonna Taylor was murdered. It has been 300 days since Elijah McClain was murdered.