"...who calls him nigger everyday."
I will be asleep when the grand jury announces its decision on whether or not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Area schools have announced closures in anticipation of the verdict. Shops have been boarded up, mailboxes locked. The Ku Klux Klan has announced its intentions to use lethal force to suppress whatever they feel may need suppressing. Gun sales skyrocketed 700% this past week. Gov. Nixon has declared a State of Emergency. Apparently, the National Guard is deployed or en route.
I am preparing to be very, very disappointed in my country. Past hope. Past hurt, well into numbness.
I'm going to wake up into a world where Darren Wilson walks free and Michael Brown is still dead. I will have missed the 4.5 seconds of silence the protestors will observe after the verdict is to be read, 4.5 seconds to commemorate the 4.5 hours Michael Brown's body was left to moulder in the August heat. I will have missed the protests and the news coverage. I will have missed the men and women and children united in their grieving. And I will have missed the white hatred aimed at them, the white hatred glaring at them from the other side of a police-issued machine rifle, the white hatred glaring at them from the other end of a store-bought machine pistol. Because that's what it is. Because Michael Brown ain't shit in America. Because Trayvon Martin ain't shit in America. Because I ain't shit in America.
The nightmare isn't what happens when you go to sleep.
It's what happens when you wake up.
I am preparing to be very, very disappointed in my country. Past hope. Past hurt, well into numbness.
I'm going to wake up into a world where Darren Wilson walks free and Michael Brown is still dead. I will have missed the 4.5 seconds of silence the protestors will observe after the verdict is to be read, 4.5 seconds to commemorate the 4.5 hours Michael Brown's body was left to moulder in the August heat. I will have missed the protests and the news coverage. I will have missed the men and women and children united in their grieving. And I will have missed the white hatred aimed at them, the white hatred glaring at them from the other side of a police-issued machine rifle, the white hatred glaring at them from the other end of a store-bought machine pistol. Because that's what it is. Because Michael Brown ain't shit in America. Because Trayvon Martin ain't shit in America. Because I ain't shit in America.
The nightmare isn't what happens when you go to sleep.
It's what happens when you wake up.