Do more than say her name
Anjanette Young … Do more than say her name. Fire somebody! At least suspend those cops who stripped her of her humanity, as she stood frozen naked, and they loitered nonchalantly — icy — clothed in indecency, devoid of empathy.
With no detectable humanity, dignity or chivalry. Not professionally. Not even gentlemanly. But awash in palpable depravity.
That’s not an animal standing there naked. She’s a woman.
See? Can you see? Ain’t she a woman?
Her unrequited cries to officers: “You have the wrong place!” Fortythree times: “You have the wrong place … ”
But they didn’t give a damn because she had the wrong face. The wrong skin, flawed femininity. African queen in melanin- baked beauty.
Anjanette Young … Do more than say her name. New faces and new names but the same old predictable Windy City game. As clear as day, it’s a goddamn shame.
Handcuffing an innocent naked woman in her home, after a hard day’s work, her sanctity gone. Surrounded by “CPD’s finest” but all alone.
And why, dear insensitive copper? Isn’t she endowed by our creator with the same inalienable rights as your momma, and yet forced to endure the terror of your guns and steely eyes?
She pleads. She cries. You ain’t supposed to see her naked thighs.
How is she any different from your own wives, sisters, aunties and daughters? Are you not yourselves husbands, boyfriends, sons, fathers? So how could you stand unfazed, unbothered? Are you sworn protectors or badgewearing impostors?
The flawed intrusion into Anjanette Young’s home is more than a chink in the system of injustice. More than a fleck in the eye of the law, which detests Black and Brown skin. More than a mistake. It is a cardinal sin.
The sin of disrespect to the Black body and soul. A sin inflicted upon Black folks from generation to generation to systematic mass degradation. And Anjanette Young’s Chicago story: Just the latest chapter of American racial dehumanization.
Anjanette Young … Do more than say her name. For she was twice demeaned and dehumanized, in my eyes. Once by the act. The other by an apparent attempted cover- up, which comes as no surprise.
The irony: They would not cover her up. It is an indignity not lost on Black women like my wife, Monica who, grieving over what happened to our dear sister, writes:
“I am so sick and tired. Of them dishonoring our humanity. Naked, bare on the auction block. In my house, casually perusing, oblivious to my humanity and dignity.
Breaking down my door and sense of safety and security, humiliating me. Shooting me. Desecrating the sanctity of my home and body. Do you see me? Standing here, naked?
Afraid. Pricked, prodded, sold. Babies snatched from me. Education, career, centuries of disrespecting. No shield from your brutality. I say me because I am the African on the auction block. I am Anjanette Young dehumanized by Chicago cops. I am Breonna Taylor gunned down on a no- knock.
You didn’t see your sister, aunt, cousin, mother, lover. You didn’t look at me as if you were my brother. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have treated me like an “other,” casually perusing as I stood naked. But still clothed in dignity. Through all the atrocities afflicted on me through history.
You may try to dishonor my humanity. But I am fearfully and wonderfully made. In the creator, I have my worth and dignity because I was made in his image. Crafted from a rib, masterfully formed from the brown ground. I am a Black woman. And I am sick and tired.”
As a Black man, I feel their pain. Anjanette Young ... Do more than say her name.