Who would you cry out for?
By Malaika Aaron-Bishop
Today I woke up with fury lighting my fingertips and a pain in my core so deep that relief seems a comic, desperate apparition. It’s a pain that erases my past and kidnaps my future. Every hug, or walk, or daydream session with my mother, every Malta or metemgee served with a side of life-advice from my aunties, every chuckle with my sisters, every note learned from my father, every laughing gift from my brothers. Gone. Every smile that ever was, and every adventure I ever embraced. Undone. An Easter-time kite flown on the Sea Wall? Lost. A library book, and sweet colourful popcorn on Grand Anse beach? Vanished. Hunting for jamun in dense Plymouth greenery? Gone. Oddly shaped clouds set against clear Mullet Bay skies? Snuffed. Crisp, fragrant winds atop Table Mountain? Incinerated. All remnants of a life I thought mine, all the best parts of me that ever was and that ever will be, stolen, held hostage, beaten. Lynched. Today, I am strange fruit.
My carefully constructed compartments have failed, it seems. I always knew they would. It would be foolish and arrogant to think otherwise. Sure, I had been getting by. All I have to do is stuff myself into smaller and smaller compartments. I have revised and re-revised 'living' to mean less and less. Yesterday, I had it down to a science - launch zoom meeting, smile, mindless banter, a touch of sarcasm, everyone laughs, then business. Share the Google documents. “Yes, I’ll add that project to my calendar.” “Sure, I can work on that with you.” What’s in the fridge? Hmm, maybe a touch more garlic on that. Gotta catch up on laundry. Shit! The milk has gone bad...again. What, another meeting? “Yes, Jeffrey, let’s organize around that. Who do we know that can help? Have we talked to our neighbors? Assessed for needs? Opportunities? Consent? Sorry Jeffrey, I have to hop to another meeting but I can't wait to continue moving this work forward...” "Hi Susan, I'm here, sorry I'm late, my last call ran long. Sure, we can talk about how you’ve discovered redlining. Oh, is your mind blown!?" Susan, girl, you don’t know the half. Wait till I tell you about the policies that protect modern day slavery, Apartheid, colonialism, mass rape, genocide. As long as we can play pretend. Democracy, the remix. How is it already 11pm? I should go to bed. 12am. Obsess. 1am. Rethink, 2am. Reframe. Until maybe sleep comes. Could be now. Could be in a few hours at say 5 am. Wake up. 7:30am. Repeat. This is the compartment within which I have lived my life for weeks. Months even. Perhaps years.
Why? When I know that joy is possible? Necessary? Why this compartment, even as I lecture others about self care?
Truth? Because I know that in order to get to that nebulous, theoretical “care for self” place, I have to wade through compartment after compartment filled with boxes upon boxes of pure unfettered, unyielding rage. Yes rage. The kind that recognizes no innocence and no guilt. The kind that consumes friends and partners and strangers alike and consumes still, and yet remains unfulfilled. The kind of rage that will, without backward thought, qualm or query cut off my own nose to spite my face, because what’s a nose when breathing is a right reserved for a small, "precious" few?
Ah. yes. There it is. I knew I would get here eventually. The case. The case where despite gravity and scrutiny and earnest intent our systems can't help but put the dead man on trial about the size of his heart or practically inconsequential trace amounts of a drug in his system. While thousands of us watch on yelling at TVs and computer screens, “this murder wouldn’t be just or acceptable Even. If. He. Was. Guilty.” Meanwhile the murderer pleads the 5th. He can afford to be silent. History and laws and policies and standard operating procedures all speak for him. Murderers, but more specifically murderers with badges, get a pass. Nevermind that silly oath to serve and protect, their judgement can be impaired by fear or (heaven imagine?!) bystanders with cell phones...
Today, as I stand mourning my own life, I cannot help but feel connected to those ones who stood watching and pleading in broad daylight as their “civil servant” and “protector” knelt atop a man's neck as he plead for his breath, and later for his mama...pinned to the pavement …. for 9 minutes and 29 seconds... I wonder, were I him, who I would cry out for to save me...
Today, I am strange fruit. For your own sakes, and mine, pray to whatever God you serve that I will not be fire and brimstone tomorrow.
(Read part 2: What is the justice you are fighting for?)