This is still happening…

***So, I wrote this back when the Ahmaud Arbery case first became widespread. This week, two more cases that highlight the abysmal condition of race relations in this country made me feel it was time to publish it.***

Dead in the middle of one of the worst public health emergencies of my lifetime, I’m smacked in the face by the reality that America continues to ignore a different glaring public health problem. The one where unarmed black men keep getting shot and killed for doing absolutely nothing besides living their lives while being black. ***Or having the cops called on them for daring to ask someone to leash their dog. Or being suffocated for alleged forgery.***

I’m not even sure how to emote anymore. I’ve cried. I’ve yelled and screamed. This time—I stare. I stare. Oh, I’m angry. I’m sad. I’m not unbelieving. No, this is completely expected. Completely expected that two men believed that the color of their skin somehow made them authority figures over another human, enough so that he had to follow their commands or lose his life—IF that really even happened. Completely expected that no one saw fit to arrest them until enough decent people around the world found out about it.

We’ve BEEN living this. And my faith in the system died with Trayvon Martin’s case when I cried for the conversations I was going to have to have with my then one year-old son, and has continued to be trampled with every subsequent black man that has suffered this fate. I remember getting on an elevator with him once when he was 3 or 4 with some nice people who thought he was just “the cutest,” and wondering when it would be they would begin to see him as a threat.

So, these men go to jail—if they do. So what? When do we see a system that says enough is enough. That black and brown people matter in this country? That it doesn’t take protests and outrage for their murderers to be arrested, because, their lives actually DO matter.

Boy, would we LOVE not to need a hashtag. Make us not need a hashtag.

I can find articles back to 2016 calling for physicians to treat this as a public health problem, and screen for the effects of this in appointments. Do you think I’ve heard about this in a single academic meeting? That should change. Period.

This is a public health problem. Because the health and lives of black men and women matter. They should—to everyone.

But what do we do with it?

What we don’t do, is die under the weight of it all. For some, it may mean that we disengage a while. For others, prayer and meditation. Absolutely, the support of the collective community, coming together to #runwithahmaud was beautiful, therapeutic, and cathartic. Hug your babies tighter. Teach them to love everything about themselves, and to love others despite how others may treat them, because love is commanded. Do what feels right and healthy for you, and give yourself grace to do it.

And decide you’re going to do something about it. If nothing else—VOTE. Vote in your local elections, because this is where it matters, folks. I’ve seen people ask how voting matters. Well, it’s District Attorney’s who decide who to prosecute, and that, my friends, is an elected position. Those officers who weren’t prosecuted until the public knew about–DA decision. Those police officers who are or are not prosecuted? DA decision. Charges brought before the grand jury? … Judges matter. The vote matters. AND vote in the national level, because this sets a whole mood. There may be other things you can do, but please, VOTE.

This is still happening…

Further reading on this issue as a public health issue:

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Further reading on this issue as a public health issue:

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