(AllHipHop News) If Black people drank the Kool-Aid of Post-Racialism, 2020 reminded them that despite how good it might have tasted — that s##t wasn’t real juice.
The fraudulent drink, mostly made of sugar, food coloring, and water is just as nutritious to the African American community as the myth that after a Black president, systemic racism was a thing of the past.
If three and a half years of President Trump was not enough, perhaps the entire first half of 2020 did the job.
Between the tragic deaths of Pop Smoke, Little Richard, Andre Harrell, Minnie from “Little Women of Atlanta” (Pastor Troy’s jawn), Betty Wright, Bonnie Pointer, Bill Withers, Kenny “MutherFlubbin” Rogers who is Black by default for making “The Gambler” and “Lady” with Lionel Richie, Thelma from “Good Times,” The Rock’s Daddy Poppa Rock Johnson, and Kobe Bryant and the COVID-19 that killed the economy and so many people from the community, it seems that the year has something out for our people.
Now the amplification of police-involved (or police-adjacent) violence against people of color caught on camera has sparked a global revolution displayed by civil unrest, protest, and riots.
It has also unearthed the ugliness of white supremacy and national blue fear.
While the names of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George “Big Floyd” Floyd, Javier Ambler, and now Rayshard Brooks are seared in our consciousness (mostly because we saw them die in front of our face) … it is quite simply hard for the average person to breathe.
So imagine the families.
The Brooks family had a press conference adding their voice to the tragic song of 2020.
One cousin said, “If you ask how this young Black man was, look at your children when you see them laugh. That innocence. That joy. That pureness of soul. Then you will have a glimpse of what we lost. You will have a glimpse of what it feels like because tomorrow we are going to have to deal with it again. We gonna have to bury him. We gonna have to say we miss you.”
“And if we didn’t have to say, ‘I love you’ enough, we gonna have to apologize to him for not telling him that we loved him that much.”
While those heartfelt words were powerful, it was his wife, Tomika Miller’s plea to have the protesters demonstrate peacefully that resonated responsibly.
As she stood there with their three small children, she asked everyone to remember her man positively and thanked people and strangers that she never even knew, for their prayers and support.
Miller never thought that she too, would be thrust into the toxic memory of the first half of the year, but with the powerful vibration of justice that is arising, perhaps her tears and advocacy, the legacy of Brooks’ life and the promise of his children will be a part of the change that is sure to come.
