Falling Back, 11. Say Her Name.

Last March, police broke into a house in Louisville, Kentucky, using a no-knock warrant looking for the boyfriend of the woman who lived there, because he had been dealing in drugs. During the melée, Breonna Taylor, an EMT, was shot and subsequently died. A police officer was also shot in the leg, by the current boyfriend of Breonna, who had no ties whatsoever to drugs, and was licensed to carry a gun. 

Now, one of the officers involved has been charged by a grand jury with wanton endangerment. But only because he fired blindly into the apartment and might have hit a neighbor. No one was charged with Breonna's death. That's it. The police keep saying that they called out that they were at the door, and to open up. Breonna's boyfriend said they were sleeping and they didn't hear anything until they heard someone start banging at the door to break it in. Fearing it was her old boyfriend, he took up his gun, and shot at who was breaking into their home. The police say that if he hadn't shot at them, they wouldn't have shot back. But do we know that for sure? The police sent away the ambulance that always accompanied a no-knock warrant, before proceeding with breaking down the door. That doesn't say much for their belief in preserving human life.

Since then, Kentucky has banned no-knock warrants. Louisville has also settled money on Breonna's family. But that's it. The police is still saying it was her fault she didn't get up and open the door, and that her boyfriend had a gun. 

Let's change the situation, and set the action in a nice area of Louisville, population mostly white and professionals. If there had been a suspicion of drug dealing, would the police have invaded a home in the middle of the night without regard to the inhabitants? Yeah, I thought so, too. But because the suspect is Black and the neighborhood isn't white and rich, it doesn't matter much what becomes of those who live in the house. Heck, they're probably involved, too, no matter that they have a good job where they help people. They're Black. This attitude is what continues to sicken me.

And it is a symptom of a sick nation, where skin color is still a marker. A Black man sits on a bus next to a white woman, and she automatically shies back, away from him. The police look for a suspect with the only description of skin color and height, and they stop a Black man to interrogate him, without even asking for ID. It happened to a college professor once. And to many others probably more than once, only we don't know details. A white kid in a store sneaks a chocolate bar into his pocket and walks out. The store employee sees there's a bar missing, and stops the only Black kid in the store, asking to see his pockets, without even checking the surveillance cameras. 

Yet America still prides itself as the freest nation in the world. For whom? Certainly not for its Black citizens. Nor brown. Nor indigenous. Nor foreign-looking. Nor for whom English is a second language. It remains an open air prison for too many, where what they accomplish doesn't matter, only their skin color. 

And then nice people sitting at home, who have never experienced any of that brutalizing discrimination complain when there are protests. But this has been going on for too long, and the day of reckoning is drawing nearer. When it comes, the nice people are going to be the ones protesting, and those who stay at home will find that it will come at a price.

Life continues.