18-year-old Michael Brown was gunned down on Saturday by a Ferguson police officer in St. Louis. Witnesses say Brown had his hands in the air as he was shot from 35 feet away.
As a black person in America, it’s getting exhausting to still have to explain, in the year 2014, your right to exist in this country. To explain that you are a human being whose value sits no lower than anyone else’s. To explain our basic humanity. And perhaps worst of all, to explain exactly why we are outraged.
We shouldn’t have to explain why it’s not acceptable for unarmed teenagers to be gunned down by the police.
We shouldn’t have to explain why even though Mike Brown’s life didn’t matter to you or a Ferguson police officer, it mattered to someone.
We shouldn’t have to explain that the clothes we wear don’t protect us against, or make us more susceptible to, violence. Four little girls were bombed in their church dresses and Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in a suit and tie.
We shouldn’t have to explain that the right to due process—that which was not afforded to Mike Brown—is in the Constitution of the United States of America. In fact, it’s in there twice.
We shouldn’t have to explain why the correct response to these tragedies is not, “but what about black on black crime?” 84 percent of white people killed every year are killed by other whites and no one ever attempts to undermine any of the senseless violence they suffer.
We shouldn’t have to explain that the punishment for even the most heinous crimes in our country is not a public execution without a trial.
We shouldn’t have to explain why we don’t trust cops when a number of eyewitnesses tell a consistent and vastly different story than that of the police officer who murdered Mike Brown.
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