I can't breathe

I can't unsee the image of an unarmed man (black) literally being kneed to death (suffocated) by a police officer (white). As a mother of a young black man the grandmother of three young black male children my heart is so heavy. For me it is not just about a black versus white thing it is a human versus human thing however I am a black woman and I love and care for several black men and I can't breathe. 

I know personally how it feels to worry about your child coming home at night because they are constantly being targeted by law enforcement simply for driving while black. When my son who is now in his 30's was a teenager he was employed and he drove to and from work alone and at least once a week as he was driving back home from work in the evening he would be stopped by local law enforcement. My son was often asked where are you going? Where are you coming from? Why are you in this neighborhood? The neighborhood that he lived in.  My son was a young black man, a teenager driving a car in a Suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood and he was stopped repeatedly. He was not speeding, he was not driving erratically, his taillights were not out, he was not disobeying any laws other than the laws of the policeman who felt he was out of place.

I can't breathe when I think about all of the young men (black) who face the same type racist driven treatment, emotional and physical brutality from law enforcement across this country.

I can't breathe when I think about all of the mothers who have buried their children who have died at the hands of law enforcement in this country.

I can't breathe when I think about all of the other mothers who are raising young black men who now worry every single moment that their children are not in their sight because of incidences like we have seen time and time again. An unarmed man (black) has been brutalized at the hands of law enforcement (white) in this country that so many people call the land of the free. I guess it is only free to those who do not look like me.

I can't breathe when the response from so many who don't look like me is but what did he do? Does it really matter what he did? The man lay helpless, handcuffed, detained unable to breathe crying out for his mother.

I can't breathe he said repeatedly. Does it matter what happened before? If he had not been a black man would anyone even question what he did before the video started rolling? If he had not been a black man would he have even been lying on the ground knee on his neck being detained?

I can't breathe.

I can't sleep.

I can't believe this is where we are in 2020 in a country where we are raised to believe that we are the land of the free. We are the land of opportunity. If you look like me this does not apply.

I simply cannot breathe.