I wrote this blog post a year ago. I'm not certain why I didn't post it. It's late, but I'm going to post it today.
Yesterday morning, I had to tackle a complex cat box problem involving a dog, a closed litter box, coats and scrubbing the front hall floor on my hands and knees. It haven't been able to watch the video yet, the video where Philando is shot within four seconds of the interaction beginning.I have the luxury of not watching it happen, of refusing to witness, of sweeping up kitty litter and wiping the floor. Diamond Reynolds doesn't. She must see it happening again and again. Her little girl doesn't. she must wake from nightmares of seeing that "pretty good guy who cared about us" get bullets in the heart, because somebody was terrified of his skin.
I put it off as long as I could. I folded laundry and watched a sit com. I took the kids swimming. I made mashed potatoes from scratch. Finally, though, I sat down and watched the video Diamond Reynolds sits handcuffed in the back of the car, stunned, wailing, numb, horrified, while her little daughter tries to comfort her--and keep her calm, "so you won't get shotted, too."
I made grilled cheese sandwiches. I swept the kitchen floor. I pickled some watermelon rind--an experiment with a recipe from 1870. Then, I watched, very tiny on my phone, a small section of Diamond Reynolds being questioned by police--the part where they told her that her boyfriend, Philando Castile was dead, the part where she wailed, that hoarse, painful wail with all its overtones, the one you make when everything is lost, when you have nothing, when you feel once again a helpless child--like the helpless child her daughter was in the police car. I quickly hit the side button that switched my phone to darkness.
In the afternoon, I heard the interview on NPR--the one where the juror explains how they reached their not-guilty decision. I was slicing apples for the kids, a steady chop, chop chop. "We took the emotion of out it," the juror said, before explaining that once they deadlocked, once that judge sent them back, they figured he wouldn't let them go before they reached an agreement.So they found the officer not guilty. They didn't want to be stuck in the deliberating room for any more days.
The juror said, "Well, he seemed like a pretty honest guy.""Wait," said the interviewer, startled. "You mean Philando Castile?"
"No." The white juror's flat Midwestern accent sounded ordinary and calm. "The officer."
He meant Jeronimo Yanez, the police officer with the puffy, young face, the one who changed his story from "I couldn't see it" (the gun) to "He was pulling it out," to "He had a c-grip." The officer who cried during his testimony, saying he feared for his life. The officer who, he testified, thought he had to shoot Philando because there was "second-hand smoke" in the car, and if Phil would smoke around a child, he was dangerous.
But the juror's take from all that confusion, from watching the video of Yanez panic, tell Philando contradictory things and kill him within seven seconds of the mention of Phil's concealed carry, was that Yanez "seemed a pretty honest guy."
My child came in and turned off the radio. I kept slicing apples, and sobbing. I had the luxury of sobbing in the kitchen over apple slices. My child could come in and turn off the radio mid-interview. My kids didn't see their dad shot because of the color of his skin. My husband doesn't have to worry, as the father of the adorable baby we met at a protest does, "Now that I have a baby, it's not safe for me to drive anymore. I can't afford to have a cop shoot me because of a broken tail light." We are white, and in this country, we are (mostly) safe.
A reporter that I much admire wrote today, "I can't take all this depressing news. I'm only looking at images of cute cats and adorable puppies." I can relate. I'm certain that during WWII, many in Poland, in France, in Germany turned their backs on the news and decided to look, instead, at cute cats and adorable puppies. Jews didn't have that luxury there. People of color don't have it here. Why should the rest of us?
We have to watch the dash cam. We have to turn the radio back on. And more--we have to leave our comfort zone, let the anger when we hear the phrase "All white people" roll off our backs. We have to remind ourselves there's abundant reasons for it. We have to stay in the room. We have to hit the protests, join the organizations, we have to make absolutely certain that every family, brown or white, has the luxury of driving their cars, slicing their apples, folding their laundry, without fearing that one phone call or one broken tail light or one bad interaction with a police officer will leave us--or someone we love--dead.
