Melanin in the Street

I can still here his mom yelling in my head, “You killed my son!”   My eyes filled with tears as I watched the video unfold on my cousins instagram story. A guy, clearly dealing with mental illness, yielding a small knife, being followed and calmed by a gentleman and his mother, while two white officers with guns drawn circle the area. In my mind I think, “This won’t end well.” And it didn’t. The guy breaks free from his mother and he takes two to three steps and before you can even process what is going on, shots ring out and his body falls limp to the street and his mother cries out as she drops by his side. A mother’s worse nightmare is to lose a child, but it has to be even worse to watch your child be gunned down in the street and feel powerless to do anything about it. It has to hurt to have tried with all you have to calm your child and save him in a situation to no avail. Another young black man dead. Another week of tension and riots and looting. Another week of comments on social media stating how, “We do this to ourselves” or “We kill each other all the time but when the cops do it, we make a big deal.” Another young man dead in the street. Another mother has to bury her son. Another family has to experience unnecessary trauma. This particular event pulled at me so strongly because my youngest son has his battles with mental illness and at one point yielded a knife and I remember calling the police. When I watched the anguish in that mothers’ face, I thought, “It could have been me.” In that moment, I just wanted to hug my seed. I wanted to hold onto him and never let him go, because another young man died in the street. How do we get passed this time that we find ourselves in? Amidst racial tension and uncertainty surrounding the election, how do we get people to value our melanated skin or see us as individuals and not predators who require death instead of grace, compassion, understanding? Our babies need a fair chance at life. Our babies need to be able to grow old and have babies of their own, but another young man died in the street. No more blood-stained concrete. No more roadside memorials. No more candle light visuals in honor of those slain. Straighten your crowns kings and queens. Walk with your chin high and your eyes to the heavens. You are made in His image. You have royal blood. Stand tall in that knowledge today and forever more. You are worth it, you are enough and no matter what stigma the world tries to attach to you, you are a child of promise. Promise to be something in a dying world. Promise of change for future generations to come. Promise of hope, but most importantly, you are valuable. More valuable than they want you to feel. Another young man slain in the street; his melanin lay cold on the concrete as his blood stains the asphalt. A mother kneels down next to her seed while yelling at the cops who pumped steel into his body. “You killed my son!” May we never get comfortable hearing the cries of helpless mothers and families trying to make sense of this. This is the time for change more than ever before. We owe it to the generations that are coming behind us to change the narrative now. There is too much melanin in the street!