The Writing

I used to believe in reform.

When I was first awoken to police violence against Black people as a teenager. I thought, just take their guns away. Then two men in my town died from being tased to death. That memory rises up as the weight between a gun and a taser is calculated. As if we could reduce deadly force to ounces.

a: control by one power over a dependent area or people. b: a policy advocating or based on such control (Merriam-Webster)

A forced dependency. An entering, a hollowing, and a manufactured need. So as to become the new source of resources and meaning.

A disease, a dis-ease of culture.

Who has a right to protection and who does not?

How do the ways gender and race impact our ability to protect ourselves? I think about “stand your ground” laws, and Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin, killed by white men claiming self-defense and a right to “protect” their community. When George Zimmerman was acquitted, it was understood, of course he would be fearful of an unknown Black person. No question.

1a : the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy

Violence is a slippery term, sliding between definitions with the turn of a phrase. Is it the violence in the imagination of white people, or the violence forced upon the bodies of Black people. Can violence be the assault of an object? Or does violence require mourning, trauma? If we label destruction of property as violence does it imbue it with personhood?