Tuesday, July 21, 2015

A new old death..where yet another black life should have mattered...but did not

Discombobulated, always, discombobulated at the continuous murder of black people, women, men, children. Angry that mental health or disease are ill gotten justifications for crimes committed with too much power differential. The lone white hate murderer was a lone wolf with mental issues, Sandra Bland posted a video talking about depression and PTSD, saying that hey, you know, not feeling right, it's more common than you think, and I postulate, she is scared because a new stage in her life is beginning, she is going to be back in perhaps not too friendly Texas, but wow, it's not just a job, it's a good job and one she excelled at and she gets stopped and she questions and says what I or any other female or human being could have said.
I was once stopped in New Paltz, on my last day of classes, last day of my Master's in Social Work. I was riding  the MTA home from NYC, got off the train, got in my car, and started to complete the last 15 miles that would put me in my bed. I had done a previous night shift, probably a few hours at my internship...no longer remember, but I was ecstatic and above all exhausted. On that long stretch of road that I had maneuvered a thousand times before, I heard a siren. I knew that if I drove another 500 feet I would take a left, stop at the gas station from where I could see my house.
So I did.
I turn off the car, hand over the papers and wait. and wait. and wait. Another car, police car approaches and stops. By now, I'm starting to get nervous. I am European, but of the Southern brand and look more Latina than sophisticated French intellectual!
One police man comes over and asks why I took a left on a red and I tell him that that is what we all do, not quite on red but turning on red as we do not want to take a left on oncoming traffic. It's 11 PM. Are you sober, he asks. Yes sir, I might be exhausted but I am indeed sober. I am coming home from my last class of a long two years and I am exhausted and I don't know why there are two police cars but no I was not going to stop in the darkness of the forest 500 feet behind us. From here I can see my house and I can see people. I feel safer.
Another comes over and asks what exactly are you doing at this hour?
Going home, sir, going home, and you can see I'm close to it. I'm so exhausted that I just want to put my head on my pillow and "sleep for a thousand years" as Lou Reed who have aptly put it.
I take out my NASW card and finally tell them, this was my last day of my last class and I am now an almost social worker. I work with people with disabilities at a well known institution and I am just exhausted. I have no idea why you stopped me and at this point it makes no difference. I don't even understand why a woman alone in a car, in the country with the car lights turned on would warrant 2 police cars with 4 men.
The cop, did not have much to say, not much at all. He did finalize with, pointing to my house, a nice clapboard with a great garden and front porch, go home and get some sleep. No apologies for being rude, for making me sit there for half an hour without explanation, nothing.
And thus I did and lived to tell the tale.
No such luck for Sandra Blanc. Maybe we will, probably we will not, ever know what really did transpire.
I do know, that if I were to be somewhere in the South, after being treated as she was, after three days of isolation, I would question what was coming and I would think back on what had been the end game with all the other blacks who died in jails, in isolation, with no care, no legal recourse and nobody to reach out to.
What would you do?

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