Keep saying it: ‘Black lives matter’
“My life, and every other Black life, matters.”
This is every Black American’s motto. In the past few months, we’ve seen an increase in deaths among the Black community.
Besides COVID-19 disproportionately affecting this community, so has police brutality. Racism is a public health crisis. The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and now Daunte Wright, help reveal the sad truth about how lives of people of color are devalued in the United States. People worldwide are now having open discussions about what racism looks like and how it is disproportionately affecting their communities and day-to-day lives. We are finally starting to hold officers accountable, and speaking out against reoccurring injustices. Every day, it seems as if another shooting results in the death of another Black person.
Wright, 20, was shot and killed after a traffic stop in Minnesota, near where Floyd was killed. The shooting was ruled a homicide and is claimed to be accidental. Many Black Americans, including me, want to see the officer held accountable. People continue to suffer from the trauma we see, such as the deaths of our brothers and sisters at the hands of the police, the people who take a vow to protect us.
This is the reality: Black men are afraid of the police. We are fearful that if we get pulled over, our lives are at stake, and we can be killed at any given time, regardless of the environment.
To continuously mourn the loss of a Black life is draining. We were put on this Earth to be conscientious members of society, not to be eternally oppressed. Today, and every day: Black Americans such as I will continue to say that our lives matter.
Eugene Bertrand, Willimantic