Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Sandra Bland

I still feel queasy.
My first thoughts, though, whenever I write these troubles down, go elsewhere.
How many cops I know.
Friends, family.
Good people. I think of them.
I'm still queasy. I almost feel like I want to throw up.
They have children, most of them raise them right.
They are respectful and, though some of them I know can be brusque, I like them.
I'm still looking at pictures, hashtags, major sites, the alt websites, too.
There's a picture where she looks haggard, in that orange jumpsuit.
She's missing the smile from every other picture of her online.
She looks hollow.
Where did she go?

There's this thing where you're all lumped together.
You're identified one way, and there are bad seeds.
Not even bad seeds.
Seeds choked in poor soil.
That have grown up into twisted adults, contorting and biasing the rest of our realities.
I have this feeling, about halfway down my chest.
I'm queasy.
I'm really upset about this.
She's a normal lookin woman in most of what I see online.
She's clearly someone who speaks her mind.
I know a lot of women who speak their mind.
I don't know that many black women.
I'm still queasy.
There's no denial that it was just a failure to signal a turn?
They don't deny that it was more than that?
That she's expected to get out of her car for that?
Daylight.
It's daylight.
That a cigarette matters.
Are you serious?
You don't have to immediately do anything they say, right?
Anything? They aren't human?

It's just this deep feeling, it sits under everything else I think about for the last hour.
What's a bad seed. Is it twisted poisoned soil?
I want to be the one who talks back.
But apparently.

I'm queasy.

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