Silently Survey My Space; I Also Have Dreams
By Tasha K
Two weeks ago in the morning, on the fourth day of the month, I learned about a Black teen I once knew, a former student, who had been rushed to a hospital the night before--gunshot wounds. Shot in the streets.
Over fifty-two years ago in the evening, on the fourth day of the month, a Black man was rushed to the hospital--gunshot wounds. Shot on a porch.
These Black lives brought to the same end. Death too soon. Adding to the count of so many others we have lost over the years: Trayvon, Tamir, our cousins, aunties, nephews, and grandparents. Shot, dead, and missed.
Leaving behind family and friends yearning for a little more time. Missing their contagious energy that created moments and memories.
Dontreal’s last living moments have been written and shared on the news and social media footnoted with racist remarks. Just like 364 days of the year we find the legacy of Dr. King footnoted with racism.
I have been thinking about this correlation, this line between a 19-year-old black boy that I knew, and that 39-year-old black man I have come to know. Both in critical condition, dead at the hospital, they didn’t make it--even though we really wanted them to. Both with racism wrapped around these two Black lives lost.
Dontreal and Dr. King lived in the same ‘made great’ country. And though they were years apart, all of the same systems and structures existed to see them lose, to see them struggle, to see them die too soon. Neither should have had to choose a life that would lead us here: missing them. Missing who they were and who they could have become.
There is no reason why Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. should have had to be the face of the Civil Rights Movement, had to be the voice of good trouble that swept through the 60s. And there sure as hell is no reason why the lifestyle that enticed Dontreal and so many others just like him in the Linden community had to be the most accessible and lucrative option for him.
But as I silently survey my space of grief, I also have dreams. Dreams that we can change this, dreams that there is hope for us yet despite the loss, despite January 3, and January 6, and April 4… That we can change the narrative around Linden, bus boycotts and activism in the streets.
This idea that “the ghetto,” black on black crime, or the fight for rights are to blame is, in fact, as false a narrative as the white “heroes” of our past. They are actually just products of something bigger: systems and structures working as they intended. Maybe Abraham Lincoln was not the man you think he is, maybe we shouldn’t blame parents or rap music, maybe there is something else at play.
How does one honestly and earnestly analyze the systems and structures that created the environment for both of these Black lives? Dr. King led a fight for rights we shoulda been had. Dontreal lived a life in a neighborhood created by red-lining and systemic economic inequalities. [Noting here that it is not a lack of value or strengths in Linden, but lack of generational wealth and equal opportunities.]
How different would Dontreal’s story have been if Jim Crow didn’t take the space of slavery or if Black folx had been able to purchase property anywhere in the Columbus area?
Would the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. be alive if white supremacy never “discovered” this land or validated white as “good” and other the rest of us?
As I silently survey my space of grief, I also have dreams. Dreams that are premature, elusive, and hopeful. Dreams that can change a generation, and match the vision so many already have of this country. Dreams of equity, and justice for all and a final dismantling of white supremacy.
Tell me about your embrace of capitalism, racism, ignorance, or supremacy. Are you one of the ones who praises Dr. King, and denounces Dontreal--even though they died of the same causes in a world not built for them to survive? They were in spaces and places that should not have needed to exist.
There is so much to think through about why one chooses a life of crime or of activism, or anything else for that matter. I don’t want streets, or supremacist, or racism, or weapons, or police, to take anyone from this earth anymore. This is my dream.
I have finally found the ultimate perpetrator buried in the history of this country, wanted for the death and oppression of so many, only found when we are truly awake. It goes by the name Systemic Racism. And as I silently survey my space of grief, I also have dreams to end it.