EMERGE FINAL

My brother was stopped again. By that, I mean that my brother Freddie
Gray died in a police van while six Baltimore police, who committed the
fatal injury, watched him sink. I mean that my unarmed brother Sam
DuBose was shot on his motorcycle at a traffic stop in Cincinnati because
the cop didn’t want to get run over. At a traffic stop. I mean that my brother
Alton Sterling was pinned to the ground and killed for selling CDs on
the street. I mean that they shot my brother Jamar Clark in the head in
Minnesota once he had already been handcuffed.
In the head in Minnesota. Like December 26, 1862. Like Abraham
Lincoln hanging Thirty Eight Men in Mnisota* once their land had already
been stolen. Handcuffed. Hanging. When I think of these 38 men, I think
of Sandra Bland. Pulled over because she forgot to turn on her blinker.
Arrested because of her attitude. Dead in her cell by that weekend.
Hanging.
Her family had just spoken to her before her death. She said she would not
give this up. That she would not let them kill her too.
And yet, there she hanged.
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