I couldn’t sleep that night.
In the wake of Daunte Wright’s murder, I struggled to calm my mind.
He was about the same age as my son and this is the greatest fear we all have.
We all do the same thing. We teach them what to do when faced with the same situation all the while encouraging them to enjoy life and not to live in fear… but the truth is… it’s always looming over us. It’s a constant thought, threat, reality.
I read an article about the shooting and had to get my thoughts out of my head so maybe, then, I could rest.
***
She killed a mother’s child.
He called his mother when he was getting pulled over.
The exact same thing we’ve told our son to do.
She claimed she had the ‘intention’ of using a Taser, but instead, as the police chief said, she shot Daunte Wright with ‘a single bullet’.
Why call out the number of bullets?
As if intent and the number of bullets matters.
The impact of that ‘unintentional single bullet’ is the death of a human being.
The taking of a life.
The end of his 20 years on earth.
The end of his potential.
The end of what he could have been.
The end of any impact he could have had on the world….
The end of his mother hearing the sound of her son’s voice or feeling the warmth of his arms in a hug.
The end for his son, his girlfriend and his family and friends.
The unjustifiable, cruel, and traumatic theft of his time.
When we hear these travesties happen, we don’t always, immediately, consider the eternal ripple effects they have on so many who loved, counted on, and cherished the victims.
They are often dehumanized and criminalized (as they have already done to Daunte and as they did to George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and many others).
Truth be told is that, for the most part, they were just living their lives.
The Brooklyn Center police officer in the case of Daunte Wright, officer Kim Porter, not confirming whether what she held in her hand was a gun or Taser alone speaks volumes about how much value the officer put on Daunte Wright’s Black life.
After being on the force for 25 years (longer than she allowed Daunte to live), she should know what a gun feels like in her hands vs. a Taser.
According to the Brooklyn Center Police Chief, Tim Gannon, “… we train with our handguns on our dominant side and our Taser on our weak side,” Gannon told reporters at a press conference. “If you’re right-handed, you carry your firearm on your right side and you carry your Taser on the left. This is done purposefully, and it’s trained.”
So, if it’s not a training or education issue, what is it?
I believe it is related to:
The manifestation of an instantaneous, biased based, internal assessment of the value of a Black human being.
Historically, Black people have been considered less than a person, 3/5ths of a man, and sometimes, not even human. Those thoughts and ideas have transcended centuries, and have manifested in life threatening biases and systematic policies and structures designed to uphold inequities. They color how Black people are viewed, valued and treated.
Over and over again we see white men and boys, who have murdered multiple people, in public spaces, who are truly actively armed and dangerous, where the officers and others are in imminent danger, apprehended and arrested with no incident and alive. And usually, unharmed.
The difference? What people “see” when they look at a person of color. They don’t see value, they don’t see a human being who matters, they see brown skin and decide worth in an instant.
Note: I encourage you to read “Stamped from the Beginning” by Ibram X Kendi. It is a non-fiction book that describes the history of racist ideas in America. I listened to it on Audible and it reshaped the way I think about racism and discrimination… even biases. It is eye-opening and foundational.
The flippant treatment of lives wrapped in brown skin.
The Officer who killed Daunte Wright did not think his life was worth double checking to ensure that she did not make a tragic, permanent, ‘error’. And then to say “Holy Sh*t! I shot him”. As if to say “Oops, my bad”. So cold, selfish and callous.
This, like so many others, was a traffic stop and he was unarmed.
If Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist who opened fire with a handgun, killing nine people (including a friend of my husband’s), at a church, during a routine bible study, could be arrested without incident and then treated to Burger King… help me make it make sense.
During a press conference in August 2020, Kenosha Wisconsin Sheriff, David Beth, one of the longest-serving and most powerful law enforcement figures in Wisconsin, under the guise of “no longer being politically correct (PC)” had the following to say about Black people. The Black citizens that he is sworn to serve and protect. He stated that his purpose was to prevent this class of “garbage” people from reproducing.
He said, and I quote, “Let’s stop them from truly, at least some of these males going out and getting 10 other women pregnant and having small children”. “These people have to be warehoused”. “We put them away for the rest of their lives so that the rest of us (white people) can be better.” With a smirk, he insisted the investment in these facilities would pay dividends in public safety, and I quote, “after this generation is gone — they’ve perished in these buildings — we can turn them into something else. Maybe it’ll be malls, maybe Amazon will buy them as warehouses later.” (more here: There’s Some People That Aren’t Worth Saving).
It’s heart wrenching to see, in true life, what we are up against. People in the senior most levels of law enforcement who see human beings as “garbage who need to be stopped from reproducing”, and “who need to be warehoused until a whole generation is gone”.
Such disregard for Black human lives.
The lack of structural deterrents.
The theory behind punishments is this – “punish offenders to discourage, or ‘deter,’ future wrongdoing”. So, if something that keeps happening over and over again (let’s say the killing of unarmed Black people), yielded the same result (acquittals, paid leave and rehire eligibility, no charges), wouldn’t that imply that the punishment is and ineffective and not a deterrent?
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results… isn’t that the definition of insanity?
This does and will not change without dealing with the root cause, instituting true and proportionate consequences and implementing true, overhaul reform.
I sat down for dinner with my sons and husband that night, and we unfortunately and once again, were discussing the absurdities of their Black lives. As a mother, my heart felt a deep sorrow because I knew a few states away, Daunte Wright’s mother’s heart was shredded. Her son was taken from her and their time stolen.
Greatest. Fear. Realized.
Let’s honor his family and the countless others by continuing to do the work. No matter how challenging it is and how deflating it can be.
Small, everyday actions and steps can make a big difference and yield significant benefits.
We must get in good trouble, necessary trouble to do so.
Those who came before us did it for us – let’s keep it going for our kids and beyond.
Hold your loved ones close.
❤️ my truth, in love
TFJ
