At this point it doesn’t even feel like words are enough to express the immense pain and disappointment in not only the high frequency of police brutality but maybe even more so society’s inability as a whole to acknowledge racism. I wrote something last year in May called, How Many Times Must We Say Their Names. Writing today just feels like a regurgitation of the same and at this point I don’t even know what to say. Morbid repetitiveness.

How many more think pieces can be written about my humanity as a black person in America? How many scholars must write fact-filled dissertations, writers & journalists craft essays, articles, papers, and stories about the history of violence in America? How many more times can we go to the streets with fire in our eyes and hope in our hearts when the system continues to fail us? How many more people’s names become hashtags while their families plea for justice that rarely comes? How many more times do we go through this cycle of terror, grief, frustration, sadness, and anguish?

I used to think defunding the police was enough, but we have to think bigger and also look more closely at this problem through a lens of reality and actuality. Policing’s history is steeped in white supremacy and even if the perpetrators of violence aren’t themselves white, they are undoubtedly a product of prejudice and acting within the realms of an inherently flawed set of racist rules. I understand people are scared of the idea of not having police in their neighborhoods and hearing abolish the police may sound synonymous with a nation steeped in crime, but the alternative is this. The alternative is seeing a 20 year old young man, in my eyes, a kid, who has a child of his own that will never get to hold his son again because the police took his life. The alternative is innocent people being arrested and killed on a whim. The alternative is watching a man lose his life right before our eyes and a trial attempting to vilify him. This cannot go on. The police have been terrorizing communities for decades. Not just communities of color either. Anyone who is vulnerable can be controlled by a badge.

Racism is obviously a problem in the US. It is something so ingrained in every aspect of our lives that it’s become this dull white noise that seems undetectable but hums continuously whether or not we hear it. That white noise now often turns into a roar. With Trump’s election and subsequently the popular rise of an especially heinous kind of republicanism that highly resembles white nationalist thought, we are finding ourselves at a crossroads. It’s not a simple crossroads with one path being absolute and the other being trash. It’s a crossroads with intersections that must all be traveled in order to get to a destination that’s safe for everyone. I wholeheartedly believe this tedious and arduous journey to equality is the very reason we haven’t made it there yet. I’ve said this for so long, but the problems in this country are so vast and complex, it’s going to take a whole lot more thought than appointing people of color to cabinet positions or changing phrasing in a law. The issues we are facing in this country require nuance and patience and care, but most importantly and really the one thing that continues to be lacking is acknowledgment. I wish abolishing the police would make all of our problems go away, but there is so much more at play in this country that must be acknowledged. We need to heal, but how can we when people refuse to see what’s right in front of them? Yes, a lot of us know on an individual level how monstrous and bloody the birth of this nation was, but the government hasn’t done much to hold itself accountable for its major role in this origin story. It offers no comfort whatsoever. No, we’re told change must come incrementally and they ignore how they’ve destroyed families and continue to decimate nations.

The history of this nation continues to haunt and punish us all. I don’t know how much longer people can go through the motions when so much is being exposed. Corporations rolling in cash because of tax breaks and loopholes, millionaires and billionaires profiting off of the pandemic, abysmal class structures, and disregard for the unhoused. Global warming. The exploitation of the gig economy. My goodness, the staggering amount of mass shootings. The horrendous attacks on trans people’s lives, including cruel legislation being pushed. Children in facilities across the country who have no idea when or if they’ll see their families again. Corruption in all corners of government and corporate America. The list goes on. There’s so much that needs to change and none of it is going to be easy, but it is necessary.

Older generations always seem to say the next generation will do better, but they plainly haven’t. We are still facing many of the same issues 60/70/100 years ago. Maybe it’s time for us to do better right now and not depend on some distant, wistful future. The way people were able to mobilize this past year to show support for BLM and continue that support to rally behind the plea to stop Asian hate, the way people donate(d) to offset the failure of our government to help its citizens shows just how much power we the people actually have right now. I truly believe there are more people in this country that want to see others thrive, live peacefully, equitably, and fully. I maintain that hope. I just wish I could figure out a way to harness it into something massive, because how many more times can we keep seeing the same headlines. Honestly, how many…