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I just got home a few moments ago. My house is quiet and the lights are low. What’s left of the sun is creeping past my curtains made for bed sheets and I think about opening a piece of Bubble Yum for the 7th time today. My eyes glaze past the gum wrapper and I see my laptop. I give it death stares. It has been the site of all this summer’s troubles, hours spent in front of it rather than in the sun, down tree-lined streets, with friends…

Then I remember my walk home from work, how I ran into an old friend, heard her recount what must have been a traumatizing experience. I remember that she told me to send her the link to the article where her story was being told, just before she took a snapshot of us for twitpic. 

I lose the battle with my laptop and send the article to the same email account I’ve had for my friend since we were 13.  

I heard her tell me the story, but seeing it in print, remembering how casually I dismissed the news earlier before knowing its subjects… I feel my chest rising, I see tears start to fall.

In my hurt and anger, I send another email (reproduced below), this time to a different friend with whom I’ve recently been talking a lot with on police brutality. A friend who is an empath like me. Sharing this with my friend is what brought me to write this post.

this story was being circulated a lot the past few days. i saw the link in my email but decided I’d wait to read it. walking from work to the station I see my middle school girlfriend who walks over to give me a hug while she’s on the phone. she introduces me to her cousin. She’s got a black eye and I overhear her going over the details of some kind of violent encounter. 
I wonder in my head if it’s the same story I had literally just seen in my email. She gets off the phone and confirms. Read the story, it’s a pretty detailed account, pretty much exactly what Yazzmen just told me had happened. I knew 5 of the 7 people involved from middle school. It was a normal night for them, chillin in adams morgan, then heading to Ihop for late night pancakes. 
I still don’t understand how the police refused to take a report, or do anything about what they saw happening aside from “breaking it up.” I don’t understand what kind of code of conduct police officers must operate by when people can be shot in the street for “appearing” to be holding a weapon, or for skipping out on bus fare and disrespecting the police, but when 5 women are harassed and physically beaten, there’s no protocol. not even a report. there were about 7 officers on the scene instantly. for what? 
i am so disturbed. have been ever since reading the article I mentioned in my tweet about the police earlier. seeing those videos and reading those stories and thinking about my brother, and thinking about all the people who are senselessly killed and all the stories that never come to light…  makes me feel so helpless. the anger brews like poison inside me. 30 years, still a boy, tried as an adult for crimes against white people and white institutions. rape a woman and get community service and parole, if that. never that.
im sitting here crying. talk to you later.

Now I’m late for dinner, and I’m crying and I’m emotionally back logged. I think about the cycles of violence that affect people’s lives everyday. Gravely, I remember the stories friends have shared, through laughter, about times they have been targeted, attacked, brutalized, oppressed. I think about the culture of violence and the men and women of the armed services that are meant to protect us. I cannot remember the last time I was in the presence of a police officer and did not feel unsafe.