An Open Letter to that Officer Who Killed Michael Brown (and ALL the officers with Black and Brown Body Counts):
I’ve always been confused about why folk can put sooooooo much effort into covering up or justifying their fuckery, but never nearly as much effort into not doing fuckery to start. To knowing what fuckery actually is–and not doing it. It’s easier, isn’t it? To have a sense of humanity? It’s easier to believe that all lives have value and to act accordingly? It’s harder to defend a gross misconduct or injustice that could have been avoided with a little self-awareness, yes?
Right now, in Ferguson, we have SWAT teams protecting and maintaining the fuckery of YOU, a police officer who is unwilling to own up to his own evil. Your name is being withheld for fear of YOUR life. All of these officers have shown up to protect and serve YOU, not the lives of the people who pay YOUR salaries. Have you noticed the hundreds of lives it takes to hold up and defend YOUR actions? I have… Cause that’s what’s going on in Ferguson right now.
All these officers and SWAT and police militia are there to defend YOU against the people who know you focked it up. Your job. You murdered someone because you wanted to. That’s not your job, is it? Murder? And so they’re defending YOU against the people who want justice for this murder that YOU committed. So it takes hundreds to defend YOUR fuckery and thousands more to put our attention on the innocent life that was lost by YOUR hand…and I don’t understand. Because these officers who are defending YOU are committing more unspeakable injustices in the process. To the people showing up for the Black Boy YOU murdered. In never ending fashion.
ALL life has value. Even yours. So why are ALL of our lives effected and affected by your choices? By your bigotry? Your hatefulness?
It’s so much easier, maybe, to rule your fuckery BEFORE it culminates into the death of an innocent. Or to own the mistake out loud, instead of inviting this kind of insanity to play out on the public stage. Why are they protecting YOU–because you refused to protect HIM?
You did this. You and officers like you created the goings on in Ferguson. This is your riot. Own it. Sure, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Sure, this goes on daily to Black and Brown lives all over this world. There are so many… (And maybe you’re just a cog in a really big wheel) But you and police officers like you, are the spark to a great fire. You lit it, so it’s yours. I pray that your name and the names of officers like you become synonymous with a grave warning about the consequences to abuse of so-called power. I pray that future generations of children look at your pictures with solemn faces of what they refuse to become. I pray we look back upon these times and say, “thank God we evolved beyond that old hot mess. Those were some stupid times, weren’t they?” I pray that your names are the ones that people go, “Don’t want to be an Officer Blah Blah. He/She was whack.” Or maybe it’s just better if history forgets you…
You aren’t brave or full of valor. You and officers like you are cowards. You’re small, weak and afraid. You’re the reason why peaceful people keep screaming “Fuck the Police”. You did that. You’re infected with fear that you inherited from somewhere dishonest. But you chose. It’s from your choice that we feel the reverberations spanning out across the globe. You did that. That’s YOUR legacy now. Own it. Bashodiin.