What is the justice you are fighting for?
By Malaika Aaron-Bishop
(Read part 1: Who would you cry out for?)
The thing about rage is that it leaves in its wake a kind of emptiness. For me, this emptiness is in some ways more debilitating than all the swirling, vengeful chaos that came before. Sometimes, all I can manage is to crawl into the darkness and hold on.
Outside, there is a hush, but even in the quiet there is evidence of broken trust, generations of social contracts violated. Shards of glass in shades of green and red and brown; bits of rubber, burnt and frayed; a mangled barricade hapless, and cast aside; bits of cloth lost among fallen leaves and branches; we all mingle among dust and debris. Where once there were people risking their lives and livelihoods to demand justice for themselves and their communities, there are only warped canisters, used and discarded, laying forlorn among the gutters. Some still dribble faint pools, stinging with shame, while the children and elders accosted and demonized for performing their civic duties go home to wash their eyes.
Like me, the streets are empty, but holding on. Even as shreds of tape, dull and listless offer halted warnings to no one in particular. “Caution." they gasp.
It’s sound advice.
Because when crowds and invaders alike have gone home to their lives and pensions, once the helicopters have retreated with their nasal, rhythmic fear-mongering, the emptiness left behind comes with a particular kind of clarity. It's a desolate, crushing clarity - our systems, the way we function as a society, is incongruent with all that we aspire to be. We sell each other myths and fantasy calling them dreams. We punish one murderer, and leave the systems that create him intact, poised to churn out more murderers and more victims. We clean the toilet but leave the shit. Happy to assuage our guilt, to relinquish responsibility, telling ourselves that it’s finally safe to avert our eyes.
On the evening of April 20th, as the world erupted in vain, vindicated jubilation, I hid among my sheets and bargained with sleep. I ignored messages from friends, dodged my email and social media. On that night, I opted out of any remarks, televised or otherwise, because I knew I couldn’t bear the platitudes. But I didn’t need to tune in, I could practically smell the self-congratulation.
“Now this, this is who we really are!”
"Thank God, finally justice!"
"This is what accountability looks like!"
I am nauseated even at the thought. A few, I imagined would be more cautious, and temper their statements.
“This is a step toward justice.”
“We have a long road ahead of us, but at least we’re moving in the right direction.”
Sure, I suppose there is some nobility in recognizing the world as it could be. I’ll even admit that I find value in pursuing a world as it should be. In fact, it’s this value that fuels my own work. But tangled in the dark, clutching my sheets, I can’t escape the sense that we've collectively conflated fantasy with reality, again. And in doing so we’ve robbed ourselves of possibility, of agency, of meaningful change...
At least I had my sheets.
While the world was celebrating justice, sixteen year old Ma’Khia Bryant was frightened and fighting. While the world was celebrating justice, sixteen year old Ma’Khia Bryant was murdered -- the same state sanctioned, tax-payer funded murder that claimed the lives of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and Philando Castille, and Saheed Vassell and Sandra Bland and Michael Brown and Stephon Clarke and Daunte Wright and Rayshard Brooks and John Neville and Mario Gonzalez and, and, and, and...
How can we call it justice, when minutes later we’ve got more blood on our hands? Truth? We shouldn’t. This isn't justice. This is individual accountability at best. Justice would be George Floyd goes home to his daughter, breathing... with a fair wage and equitable access to healthcare, housing, education, healthy foods and a culture that recognizes his humanity.
Justice is when Ma’ Khia Bryant doesn’t need to grab for a knife if she’s in trouble. Justice is when a sixteen year old girl doesn’t have a lifetime of evidence that in the eyes of the law, and most other systems and institutions in this country her needs are meaningless and all she can do is fight for herself because she is all she has. Justice doesn’t leave behind systemic quicksand within which whole communities are left underserved but over-surveilled, policed into margins, to make do with little beyond their own resilience, while systems of oppression leech their labor and steal their wealth while expecting docility and gratitude.
And this isn't just an unfortunate, missed opportunity. It's a terrifying repeat of history. It's the twist at the end of every horror story when the audience knows that the monster is still alive. It's the spinning top that seems to slow but does not stop. What we’ve witnessed, what we continue to witness, is systemic oppression in slow motion, is institutions perpetuating themselves at all costs, is anti-Black racism that condemns a whole group of people, paints them as violent, while profiting from violence against them and then telling them, telling us that we “deserve it.''
So if you hear nothing else from me hear this: do not be fooled. This is not a matter of a few bad people ruining it for officers everywhere. The system of policing is fundamentally flawed. It is historically, currently, financially, legally, emotionally, psychologically and politically intertwined with systems of white supremacy, rooted in slavery and central to all other systems of oppression.
On April 20th, the world celebrated a guilty charge won by upholding a myth. A dangerous myth that tells us George Floyd’s murder was an act committed by one man. A myth that justice is about understanding that “there's nothing worse for good police than a bad police." This myth, this fantasy allows us to never really look beyond the husband, daddy, brother, cousin, friend, neighbor, whomever (regardless of their race) when they strap a gun to their hip and walk into a system designed for and by white supremacy. This myth allows us to believe in the power of “good people” in a status quo system rather than in our collective power to create systems that serve all of us, systems that can keep us all safe.
No. I’m not saying that I wanted George Floyd’s murderer to be found innocent. What I AM saying is that as long as we confine ourselves to this narrow fantasy of justice we won’t ever create the kind of safety that I can trust. And if you are fighting with me. Truly WITH ME. And if we're fighting for justice that will keep us safe, truly safe, then we can’t fight for ANYTHING LESS THAN RESTORATIVE JUSTICE, ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND QUALITY UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE AND HEALTHY ACCESSIBLE FOOD AND EARTH CONSCIOUS GREEN ENERGY, AND EQUITABLE ACCESS TO EDUCATION AND A REAL LIVING WAGE AND REAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND REPARATIONS FOR THOSE PEOPLE WHOSE LIVES, LAND AND LABOR CREATED THIS COUNTRY’S WEALTH.
Fight for that, all. of. that. Then, only then, can we call it justice.