Growing up, I never once feared for my life. I’m from suburban Massachusetts, where I was raised by two love parents with three siblings. Until the age of 22, I was blessed to have four grandparents in my life, in addition to your traditional Italian style families, meaning countless voices and opinions on things being thrown at you from the dinner table. As a white male, I was aware that I had a good upbringing. On paper, I come from a middle class family, went to a private college, started working within months of my college graduation, and currently live in Boston. But privilege is more than just what we see on paper. As a gay man, my privilege that I did hold in my life isn’t truly there in some ways. When Pulse nightclub was the focal point of media outlets a few weeks back, it occurred to me that even in 2016, as a gay man, I’m not necessarily safe or equal. This pales in comparison, however, to what individuals are going through who identify as a minority based on race. Knowing my place in America, I’ve been actively using my voice to promote that #BlackLivesMatter, and that violence against the black community must be halted. Violence against anyone based on race, gender, sexuality, etc. must be stopped. But it is time to use my platform as a writer with Odyssey to let two women of color speak. Jana Dorsey and Ashley Golden-Battle are both are former colleagues at Northeastern University, but more importantly they are friends. They are intelligent women whose lives are directly influenced by events seen in the media today.
Jana Dorsey
Just 5 days ago, the night skies all across the USA were lit with fireworks in celebration of the day this country became independent and free. That was 1776. It took 89 years after this newly found “freedom” for the United States to abolish slavery. Even with a piece of signed paper indicating that slavery was abolished through the 13th amendment, a divide and hundreds of years of discrimination followed. Unfortunately, some 240 years after the signing of the declaration of independence, black people in this country are not free. How can we be free when a system that was not intended or built for us remains in place to date? How can we be free when 12-year-old Tamir Rice was murdered in cold blood in a park for playing with his toy gun and citizens of this country sat behind their computer screens and found every reason to blame the child for his own death? Issues such as the school to prison pipeline, the hyper-criminalization of black people and the overall constant discrimination of us is a norm. U.S. American culture has become desensitized to the images of black bodies gunned down in the street by the very people that took an oath to serve and protect.
My father was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. I recall being told in my own childhood stories of his time there, including the few instances where he was chased down by police during the Baltimore uprising of 1968, in which black Baltimoreans united and marched as a response to the assassination of the late and great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, TN. After jumping fences and literally running for his life, he thankfully got away from them. As I reflect on the present state of emergency and genocide of black people in this country, I shutter at the thought of how I potentially could never have existed had the police gotten a hold of my father that day. He was a young man and would later go on to earn his PhD, become a Professor, travel the world and touch the lives of many. Imagine what young black boys such as Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Dillon McGee, and Patterson Brown could have done with their lives? They could have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, educators, active community members, nurses, firemen, policemen, veterans, parents…the list goes on. Unfortunately, their futures were snatched away from them before they could ever embark on any of these potential trajectories.
My sophomore year of college, I lost three family members within three months. My caring and lively maternal grandmother, Eileen; my loving and intellectual maternal uncle, Spencer and my witty and kind paternal uncle, Eric. Health conditions and natural causes took my maternal grandmother and uncle far too soon. Police brutality and the hyper-criminalization of a 6’4/300lb+ man took the life of my paternal uncle.
Uncle Eric was cashing a check when he collapsed suddenly in January 2011. An ambulance was called, he was unconscious and having a stroke. EMTs’ strapped him down to the gurney and began to drive off when he woke up and became extremely frazzled, confused, scared and subsequently disorderly. EMTs’ called the police. They arrived on the scene and dragged him out of the ambulance, slamming his head on the pavement. They had him on the ground in handcuffs. The ambulance left and soon after the police realized that my uncle had stopped breathing. A second ambulance was called and he was taken to the hospital. Somewhere along the way, his wallet was lost and he ended up being in the hospital as a John Doe. For days I spoke with my cousin, Eric Jr. as we tried to figure out where his father could be. Eventually, they found him and unfortunately…he never woke up. He passed away a few weeks later, January 2011.
My uncle’s name is not John Doe. His name is Eric E. Dorsey. SAY. HIS. NAME.
The emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement was triggered by the countless murders of humans of African descent in the United States by law enforcement officials. The movement has been criticized for excluding other races and ethnicities as well as perpetuating anti-police culture. I am here to tell you, do not believe the hype. The Black Lives Matter movement does not condone violence. According to their official website, the movement defines itself as “an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.” (Black Lives Matter, 2016) What many fail to realize is that the rebuttal to Black Lives Matter, dubbed “All Lives Matter” derails, puts a mask over, closes the container, avoids, and ignores the issue that Black lives do not matter in this country. We know that all lives matter and we operate as such. We just need the rest of the USA to realize this.
Over thirty years ago, my mother came to this country from a small island in the Caribbean, Nevis, in pursuit of her higher educational degree. This narrative is paralleled to that of millions in the United States, and essentially what we were founded on; leaving homelands to go to “a better place.” As a black woman, this place is no better than many of these original homelands in my opinon. I don’t feel safe here. Sure I have clean water as a resident of Boston, MA, but my black brothers and sisters in Flint, MI are still turning on their faucets to see brown water in 2016. Flint has a history of poverty and is a predominantly black city. If you honestly think that would happen in a wealthier or even whiter city in this country, you are a part of the problem. Your blindness and ignorance contribute to the state of the USA.
It does not matter that I am the child of two PhD holders, have a master's degree myself and have never committed a crime. That does not matter. If you place me next to any other black body, criminal or not, formally educated or not. Neither of us deserves to be murdered. We are the same. We are humans, just like you. So, stop killing us.
I challenge you to do more research, stand in solidarity with us and to not allow the “uncomfortableness” of these conversations to deter you from speaking up and speaking out. Being uncomfortable is a part of your privilege.
Ashley Golden-Battle
I remember my first encounter with the police. I was four years old. My mother was taking me to the library to get yet another book, when a police officer believed that she had run a red light. She pulled over by parking in the lot of the library itself. The police officer came up to the door and began to question her about running the red light. My mother is a fair skinned Black woman, and also a lawyer. However, there was no mistaking the level of both calm and fear in her voice when she spoke with the police officer as she tried to assure him that she had not run a red light. I, on the other hand, completely lost any semblance of composure.
"Please don't shoot us," I said. "You have a gun. Please don't shoot us."
My mother looked at me, shocked. The cop look confused and told my mother, "Your daughter seems upset," and let her off with a warning. We were free to go.
I married my wife on June 4, 2016. A week later we were celebrating Pride on the streets of Boston, culminating in a dance off at Club Café with a group of our friends. The next day, we awoke to the news of the shooting in Orlando, Florida. A gay club. Where all of the victims were people of color, primarily Latino. Forty-nine lives were lost just trying to live.
As I watched Philando Castile die in his car with his fiancé in the driver's seat and live streaming the aftermath on Facebook live as her four year old daughter watched it unfold in the backseat, I found myself at a loss for words yet again. As a Black woman in America with a Honduran wife, where can I live and be safe? I can't be safe in my hoodie, I can't be safe during a traffic stop, I can't be safe in the club, I can't be safe in church.
Why do Black Lives Matter? Perhaps the better question is why are some people convinced that they do not? This country was founded on the principles of inequality and white supremacy. This is something that I figured out very early in life based on obsession with Black History. History I had to teach myself because it wasn't part of the curriculum. I realized that there was a different set of rules for black people in order to live in this world:
When dealing with police, be polite. Comply. Don't argue.
People will follow you around stores because they think you'll steal.
You have to work twice as hard to get anything.
But as Philando Castile's mother said, what is the point of complying if you end up dead anyway? To say Black Lives Matter is not to say that other lives do not. It just means that Black Lives Matter just as much, and it also means that it is clear that Black lives are being treated with an alarming amount of disregard by those who are supposed to protect society. But instead, they're using our bodies for target practice.
The rules for survival I learned and was taught at a young age don't work anymore. Unarmed blacks are five times more likely to get shot than unarmed whites. White people can slaughter an entire room of black people in church and still walk out alive, whereas police now use bombs to blow up Black men once they're committing acts of violence. I could end up dead for trying to live my life. My education, my parents and my upbringing will not save me because people only see one thing--the color of my skin--and assume they know all about me.
It's disturbing that shootings of black men and women have become far too common. There is no doubt that change is happening. There is also no doubt that with that change comes the unveiling of painful and comfortable truths for the members of society who never realized that there were different set of rules based on the color of one's skin. I have the right to live, and I will not stop fighting until I can without fear.
Recently, a former college classmate tried to tell me to check my privilege and that as a gay man I was equal in America. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth. If I was equal in America, I’d have full federal rights when it comes to marriage. My ability to marry the person I love, whoever he is, until this very decade when everyone else has been able to do so since the dawn of time. But even more frightening is that men and women of color cannot do basic things in America like play on a playground, go to a playground, or drive around with their fiancé or daughter without being killed. It’s a frightening fact, and it helped me checked my privilege that I did have as a white man a long time ago. I don’t deserve that privilege in a world where my friends cannot be safe. The frank fact of the matter, is that none of us deserve this privilege until we are going to use it proactively. Until #AllLivesMatter genuinely include all lives. Not just the white ones.
