Why?

It is a question that begs an answer whenever

something happens like what happened in that
metro train station near Oakland on New Year’s Day.
As others were celebrating, perhaps drinking,
dancing, praying

Oscar Grant lay dying.

Why?

“He was reaching for his taser…” is the explanation

given by the police department.

Logical minds recognize the lie for what it is. Isn’t

the taser on the opposite side of the gun for that
very reason?

A train station full of no doubt traumatized people,

one with a camera phone, was there to bear witness
to the cold blooded murder of a man. A black man,
with a family. With friends. With enemies, no doubt.
Chief among the enemies are those supposedly
there to serve and to protect.

Why?

When prompted to speak at the funeral of a fallen

comrade, the nameless character in Ralph Ellison’s
Invisible Man said:

“Now he's part of history, and he has received his true

freedom. Didn't they scribble his name on a standardized
pad? His Race: colored! Religion: unknown, probably born
Baptist. Place of birth: U.S. Some southern town. Next of
kin: unknown. Address: unknown. Occupation:
unemployed. Cause of death (be specific): resisting reality
in the form of a .38 caliber revolver in the hands of the
arresting officer, on Forty-second between the library and
the subway in the heat of the afternoon, of gunshot
wounds received from three bullets, fired at three paces,
one bullet entering the right ventricle of the heart, and
lodging there, the other severing the spinal ganglia
traveling downward to lodge in the pelvis, the other
breaking through the back and traveling God knows
where.”

Is that it? Could Oscar Grant be rightly accused of

‘resisting reality’? It does not appear so. On the video,
one might see a slight jerking of his body in an attempt to
get out from under the foot of the officer standing over
him. Could that, then, be what they term resistance?

Shot in cold blood. This is so unbelievable. And if history

proves itself capable of repeating, the likelihood of their
being justice for him or for his family is slim to nil. I try to
be optimistic about such things, but with every jury that
finds officers who perpetrate such atrocities not guilty, my
optimism wanes. Honestly, I think they will try to find in
their minds some excuse for the behavior of the police
officers whom they do not want to believe could have
anything but the best interests of the people in mind.

Man, this is so heartbreaking. I sit here, typing through

tears these words and wondering what we could do. All
our protests, all our tears, all our changes in legislation.
Our letters, and shouting, and revolutionary rhetoric. All
for what? Every time you turn on the news there’s another
assault on black manhood that we couldn’t prevent.
When I was in Atlanta, one of my coworkers had a brother-
in-law who was killed by police officers. The official story
was that he had been shot, but the truth—told only in
apocryphal accounts by shocked witnesses—is that he’d
been hit several times by the police vehicle. Rammed into
the brick wall of an apartment building in East Point close
to where Eddie lived.

Why?

We can rationalize it as brothers being in the wrong place

at the wrong time. We can tell ourselves that the brother
was a hustler, on the corner dealing in death. But the
reality is that if the fathers of this ‘great nation’ decided
that all men are entitled to certain inalienable rights, one
of them has to be the right to stand on the corner or in a
train station without the fear that those hired to protect
and serve will be the ones who kill.

Dang. I’m so sad. I don’t even know why stuff like this still
gets to me, but it does. I’d think that having worked on so
many ‘Free brother/sister so-and-so’, ‘Justice for
whomever’, and ‘Defend the rights of this person’
campaigns I’d be immune to the sadness and shock that
accompany these incidents. Yet, I am not immune. I find
myself weeping, even as I write.

What can I do? I am here, and this happened there. If I

get on a train and chase every civil rights violation that
occurs around the country, when then am I going to have
time for career and family? Or for that matter,
relationships?

What can I do?

I suppose I’ll call Daddy. At the very least, he’ll help me

sort this out in my mind.
I suppose, beneath the sadness, is a certain fear. I have a
son, I have a brother, I have a father and uncles and
cousins and friends whom I love. So, many beautiful black
men in my inner circle, and I honestly fear for them.
Every time I hear such a story out of California, I study the
face carefully to make sure it’s not Daddy. If it happens in
Texas, I pray it’s not Michael or Uncle Mark. In Georgia, I
pray that it’s not Eddie. In Chicago, Terrance or
cousinEric. Because any of our brothers could be shot
down without a second thought by law enforcement, and
there is so little we can do about it.

Powerlessness feels terrible. I pray to God every day for

peace of mind concerning those things which I myself
cannot reach out and change. Yet, I can find no peace
when justice is not available for all.

Including Oscar Grant.

And I’m tired of this. My civics books and copyof the

constitution say that this is not supposed to happen here in
the U.S.A. Everything I know about the law and about
justice says that this is not supposed to happen here.

Yet, it did. It’s not the first time, and it probably won’t be
the last.

What can I do?

My chest hurts.