Forever Young: From Emmett To Trayvon
Why We Will Not Overlook the Deadly Consequences of Violence Perpetrated Against Black Lives, Especially Our Children
Trayvon Martin would have been 22 years old yesterday.
The death of this young boy — the result of a vigilante who viewed his mere existence as a threat — spurred a social movement in Black Lives Matter. Regrettably Trayvon’s was not the last name we’ve been called to remember under such tragic circumstances since his murder five years ago.
Following his death, Trayvon’s parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, created national support groups for parents affected by similar tragedies. Fulton is also considered one of the Mothers of the Movement — a group that includes the mothers of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Hadiya Pendleton, Dontré Hamilton, Blair Holt, Oscar Grant, and Jordan Davis — who have stayed politically active on the topics of gun violence and police brutality through the elections, protests, and various awareness campaigns of the last year.
But before Sybrina Fulton and the Mothers of the Movement there was Mamie Till-Mobley.
Unfortunately, Trayvon’s story is not a new one. The reckless disregard for the lives of young black men and women was brought to forefront of American consciousness more than 60 years ago with the death of a young boy from Chicago, Emmett Till. And in his case it took more than half a century to confirm what most of us already knew — Carolyn Donham — the woman at the center of that tragedy, falsely testified about Till’s actions all those years ago. A lie, coupled with deep racial prejudice and systemic racism, which led to his untimely death.
The parallels between Till and Martin can’t be ignored. Both boys were out getting refreshments at a local store moments before grown men cut their lives short in extrajudicial killings — men who felt assured their actions were supported by local laws and societal norms. In 1955, 14-year old Emmett Till, was beaten, tortured, and shot to death for reportedly whistling at that white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi. His body was discovered days later in the Tallahatchie River mangled beyond recognition. His killers were later acquitted by an all-white jury.
It was Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett’s mother, who insisted on an open-casket funeral back home in Chicago. Despite her overwhelming grief, she allowed tens of thousands of people to view her son’s mutilated body, publicly illustrating the devastating violence of Jim Crow segregation. Her bravery was one of the sparks that kindled the Civil Rights Movement. And in an act of continuing grace and commitment to education, the family donated Till’s casket to serve as the centerpiece of a powerful exhibit at National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.
Silencing Our Grief in Political Discourse
Yet in the last year alone we are reminded again and again of the weight of the uneven carriage of justice in America. We see it in the senseless murder of Joe McKnight where it took two months to charge his killer, who shot him in broad daylight, with manslaughter. We see it with the mistrial in the murder of Walter Scott. Scott, an unarmed black man, who was fatally shot from behind by a white North Charleston police officer. And like Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, who were also killed at the hands of law enforcement officers, his death was filmed by bystanders on mobile phone videos and then ritualistically propagated across social and mass media with psychologically damaging effects.
When these incidents raise the ire of black protesters, our national discourse seems hell-bent on shaping the subsequent discussion on vigilante justice, police brutality, and gun violence in a manner that erases, misidentifies, and re-marginalizes the justifiable outrage and concerns of a community plagued by this reoccurring violence. And with these actions come a secondary loss — having these deaths reduced to tools used to project a targeted narrative about black rage and grief.
Adding insult to injury of black folks’ souls, the latest news cycles around the killing of unarmed Blacks has received little to no primetime coverage by major news outlets. It seems the news media has been too absorbed by the drama they helped produce during the presidential campaign and now the rise of the Trump presidency to make time for black concerns beyond a passing mention of its impact on us as a voting bloc.
In this moment — in the vacuum of white liberal grief and underestimated and untapped white working poor rage — there is literally no airtime for the pain and fears that plague black lives.
Yet this reality is not news for anyone who identifies with the Black community or a wider community of American and global citizens crushed by these type of reoccurring losses. Given America’s unwillingness to have sincere, transparent dialogue about institutional racism, mass violence prevention (a term we need to embrace to properly reframe our national gun control debate), criminal justice reform, mental health care, veterans’ services, and the more than a dozen concrete, intersecting public policy challenges these tragedies highlight; I am deeply concerned these are deadly images I shall have to explain to my future children. Actually I am not only certain of that truth, I am deathly terrified by it. And this is how many of us are left feeling hopeless, helpless, and rendered mute. And that is the point.
Experiencing Public Tragedy as Personal Loss in Our Communities
When these acts of violence occur, a considerable swath of America are once again left to grieve public tragedies in very personal and private ways. Although these current events are created by our collective politics and policy as much as personal prejudice, the rest of America largely refuses to address this underlying pain. Despite the fact that we take to social media to voice our grief and support from similarly aching souls, we still spend most of waking hours at work environments, academic spaces, and places of worship where our grief is not understood, validated, or simply goes unnoticed.
Yet we are expected to participate in a national dialogue on moving our country forward although our grieving has gone largely ignored for days, years, and even whole lifetimes.
As someone who has undergone my fair share of tough losses over the last few years — from relationships to the devastating loss of a parent — I can tell you these types of public tragedies can feel equally as painful and personal. Unbeknownst to many, these public tragedies are sinking into the psyche of Black America, Brown America, and immigrants in America. It is sinking in and it is spreading. They are meshing with our personal losses, which we often see as tinted by the same stain of conscious an unconscious racial and cultural bias, whether it appears in lack of economic opportunity or inadequate access to quality medical care. And if that sounds shocking to you, it is that much more jarring but no less real a phenomenon to experience.
The truth is the pain seizing the American public right now, is cutting into already festering wound within communities of color.
This is how we end up spending long stretches in a literal daze. After watching video of Walter Scott being shot in the back or Lavish Reynolds document the shooting of her fiancé in front of her 4 year-old daughter, I found myself silently yet involuntarily crying at the sight of Black children in public. I suddenly had a heightened awareness of their vulnerability as well as adults’ inability to protect them. I unconsciously mumbled to myself as I wrestled with how unfathomable it would be if I lost my baby brother — the lone surviving black male in my family — in such a way; how inconsolable I would be if I lost one of the people I love most in the world. These are the everyday signs of our trauma that go largely unnoticed in our current political landscape.
But this is also the doubly unjust scenario in which so many experience our collective grief. It’s a never-ending, painful feedback loop where after months, if not years, of investigation the perpetrators are likely to be found not guilty. This has been true for the families and communities of Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, Freddie Grey, and Sandra Bland. In the case of Emmett Till it literally took decades for the truth to come out.
The thought of this cycle of injustice added to our current political climate is both dizzying and nauseating. In such a condition, it can be nearly impossible to focus, when so many of us are left feeling frustrated to the point of distraction. Left feeling uneasy and slightly resentful about having to devote our effort to social and political action when we feel like those within our community are under attack and easily forgotten in the aftermath in poorly executed identity politics. And we all know many people of color who go through this same experience. Mostly in silence.
Every day out of necessity, we as people of color brush aside the multi-dimensional layers of violence that we encounter on a daily basis. We don’t consider how it accumulates over time. It is simply a matter of survival. As a result, however, we underestimate how hurt we truly are.
These are symptoms of trauma that often go unnoticed in the personal lives of black, brown, and immigrant people every day. Those of us who are often working alongside colleagues and living among neighbors who tell us (as they often do so on social media) that ‘All Lives Matter’ with no clue of the internal turmoil going on in the lives of people living and working next to them. Let alone the folks they’ve seen executed and grieving deaths repeatedly on their digital screens.
To many these are merely grave images. To us they are projection of a potential future, graves and all.
Holding Space and Moving Forward
Following this election, there are many in America who would like nothing more to put this all behind us. This is true of conservatives who feel energized by their recent wins and desire to push through policies that fit their political agenda. Yet it is also true of liberals who are eager to build coalitions in opposition to the current political leadership in Washington. However the reality for people of color in this social and political moment is that our lives have been vulnerable for generations, regardless of administration. The truth is we are still coping with layers of grief and trauma caused by simply trying to survive in America. And anger, while often uncomfortable, is a natural part of the grieving process.
Believe me, I understand. And what I have learned from my recent personal experiences with loss is that denial and suppression are woefully inadequate methods for coping with grief. Our goal should be dialogue and action, not just for a sense of catharsis but with a bent toward transformation. Dialogue and action — but only with those who are willing to hold space for the full expression our humanity. Our pain, trauma, fear, and joy, which has as much right to be politically expressed as any other citizen.
Stop asking us to be compassionate and brave and magical on behalf of America’s soul. We have lost too many leaders and too many children in that fight.
It is now time for all of America to be compassionate and brave enough to carry the burden of grief with others even if you don’t experience it or understand it the same way, so no one is left to carry this grief alone. That is how you show people they matter. Not by shouting over their pain.
No one is more acutely aware than communities of color the threat posed by a whole host of policies now on the table that will likely put the lives of our families, and in particular our children, in further peril. In the face of this type of threat some individuals are overtaken by fear and grief while other galvanize and organize. This is but one of the many lessons we learn from from mothers like Mamie Till-Mobley and Sybrina Fulton. Now is the time to draw on that strength; to hold space; to remember. To make the world a safer place for our children by any means necessary.
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