Midnight whispers of Breonna Taylor, Botham Jean, and Jacob Blake
By Dontá McGilvery
There are certainly some strange things that can happen at midnight, especially for Black and Brown people living in the United States of America. Of course, strangeness is not anything our nation has never seen before. Preaching a sermon entitled “A Knock at Midnight” in the summer of 1963, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., warned that we as a nation are experiencing a kind of darkness synonymous to that of midnight. Pointing out the midnight observed in our social order, psychological order, and our moral order, Dr. King described midnight as “a darkness so deep that we can hardly see which way to turn.” Although we are now more than 50 years past Dr. King’s warning, today, midnight continues its disruptions in the same three areas Dr. King mentioned so long ago.
Unfortunately for me, it was at midnight when the social, psychological, and moral disruptions taking place on the national stage localized themselves by showing up at my front door. It began when a fight broke out right outside the front window of my apartment at midnight on September the 9th, 2020. My wife and I were cleaning when we heard screaming and cussing. The fight involved a boyfriend and girlfriend versus another woman who had her small child with her. It was a spectacle in the saddest sense. The screaming and cussing went on for quite some time until finally my wife and I built up the courage to step outside to tell the people to chill out as our two small children were in bed asleep. Much to our surprise, they heard us respectfully and walked their separate ways.
Ten minutes later, while lying in bed halfway asleep, we heard a knock on the door. We did not know if it was the couple we had just addressed or the police. When I looked out the peephole I saw nothing. Then, a bright light suddenly flashed through the peephole and a voice from the other side said, “Police.”
Listen, without thinking, I told my wife to grab her phone and record. Before I opened the door, I yelled back, “I can’t see anybody so how do I know it’s the police?” To which the male voice responded, “You’ll see when you open the door.”
I hesitated at first but I opened the door anyway, scared to death and not understanding why I was complying. The man, a young White male, peaked his head around the corner as he looked at me and quickly surveyed our apartment — still not revealing his body. Not sure who he was or what was about to happen, I said to him, “I don’t know if you’re an officer.” That’s when he finally stepped directly in front of my door, revealing his full uniform. Sure enough, he was an officer. But for some strange reason, I still felt no safer than I did before he revealed himself.
“Where’s your other hand?!” he yelled to me in a panic. “Can you show me your hands?!” I quickly showed him both hands; I raised them high in the air as fast as I could.
By that time a second officer came around the corner. He, too, was also a young White male, and both officers appeared to be very nervous. They acted and responded as if they did not know what to expect from me, and I certainly did not know what to expect from them. They questioned whether we were the couple who had a fight outside, as someone reported that it was us. My wife warned me that the nosey neighbors, who happen to be White, would mistake us as the ones who were fighting because we are the only Black couple that live on the first floor and the neighbors, being new residents, did not know us or any of the other residents in our unit. Plus, my wife spotted “Karen” looking out the window just as we were walking back into our apartment after the fight had ended, so she knew trouble would follow.
After we cleared things up with the officers, I recognized how terrible a state we are in as a nation; we have gotten to the point where it is difficult for anyone to trust anybody. What a state of moral degradation. On one hand, my wife and I were afraid of what might happen if we tried to stop the couple from fighting; would they turn on us? Did they have a weapon? While on the other hand, we were also afraid of the police at our front door. Was it really the police? Did they want to question us or treat us as if we were already guilty? If I delayed opening the door would they have forced their way inside? How many officers were there? To make matters worse, I also observed the fear the police had of me. They were genuinely nervous; fear was written all over their faces and trembled in their voices.
What epoch are we currently living in such that fear and violence are the norms? More importantly, what kind of world are we preparing the younger generations of people to inherit?
I cannot help but to think about the little boy who witnessed all the abuse his mother faced outside fighting with the other couple. I cannot help but to think about my own children asleep in the bedroom. How can we assure a better — safer future for today’s children when today’s adults live in fear? Is it possible that the little Brown skinned child, along with my two Black children, see a different reality than the children of my colleagues or the children in my colleagues’ neighborhoods? What does midnight look like for the families of those whose stratification are much different than mine? Are there any stratifications that can afford Black and Brown people far less interruptions at midnight? Do my colleagues know how often my midnight is interrupted due to the social, psychological, and moral disorder of our nation? Yes, we need healing in our land, but how can we heal when there is “a darkness so deep that we can hardly see which way to turn”? What’s more, as an employee of a university, how can we help students see clearer when many of us fail to consider the interruptions many of our students face at midnight?
I am glad things ended peacefully for me and my family that night, though I cannot pretend to have slept peacefully. I acknowledge that the unjust murders of Breonna Taylor and Botham Jean, along with the violent brutality endured by Jacob Blake, not only affect me and other Black people: They affect us all. These are evidence of the need for us to collectively break through the darkness so that a “Knock at Midnight” doesn’t lead to incarceration at midnight, beaten at midnight, paralyzed at midnight, trafficked at midnight, deported at midnight, abused at midnight, or worse, another dead at midnight. Let us fight together so that we may see the beauty of daybreak.
Dontá McGilvery is a PhD candidate in the theatre for youth program at Arizona State University, and serves as the Herberger Institute Dean’s Fellow and Coordinator for Culture and Access.
