There is a difference between knowing and understanding.
Story time! One night, a Black girl was walking by herself, and Isaiah and I saw her. A police officer drives by, it's about 9:30pm, and then stops. I continue walking after seeing her, oblivious to it all, and Isaiah stops. He stops and watches. He stops and watches this woman talk to the officer, there is fear. When the conversation is over, Isaiah tells me about how he had to watch. How she looked around to see if anyone were there to protect her, and he was. Isaiah had to tell me with pain in his eyes. And when I tried to comfort him, saying "I know, I know, I'm sorry," he loses it. He says "No, you don't know. You will never know. You don't know. You may try to understand, but you don't know." Isaiah's anger was and is fair, his backlash was fair because I will never know what it feels like to be in a position of this fear, I will never understand the fear, but my effort will never go unnoticed. I will do everything I can to make it a known effort. My constant effort of trying to understand and help is important. Fear that I will never understand, is fear in the Black community that can never be understood by others.
However, not helping enough is still a problem. When you don't try to understand. When you say All Lives Matter. When you suppress the black community as "too sensitive." They are not sensitive. They are angry. I am angry. People should be angry. No one that has died under the hands of the police deserve to die.
There is a prediction that over 1000 people will die under the hands of police within the end of 2016. This "statistic" is overwhelming because this number shouldn't have be reached until the end of the year, but shouldn’t be reached at all. Why is there a statistic of people that should die by the end of the year? People should stop the killings, not predict how many more killings we will have by the end of the year.
Carnell Snell Jr. didn't deserve to die. He died in Los Angeles. He was 18 years old. He was shot while his hands were up. Carnell Snell Jr. didn't deserve to die.
Reginald Thomas didn't deserve to die. He called the police for help. He received force instead of assistance. He was beaten to death for trying to help a mentally ill man. His body was left on the street for 13 hours. Reginald Thomas didn't deserve to die.
Alfred Olango didn't deserve to die. The police murdered him when he was disoriented from a seizure. Alfred Olango didn't deserve to die.
This is fucking ridiculous. The fact that even in these cases, the visibility of racism is apparent. These people didn't deserve to die.
Trayvon Martin didn't deserve to die.
Sandra Bland didn't deserve to die.
Keith Scott didn't deserve to die.
Terrence Crutcher didn't deserve to die.
No one deserves to die for existing, for living, for their skin color. No one deserves this.
Black Lives Matter, and this fear from the police shouldn't exist. It is unfair. No one deserves to die. No one deserve to live in fear because of their skin color. No one. No one deserves to fucking die. Black Lives Fucking Matter. And the fear shouldn't exist. No one deserves to die because of their skin color. No one.
