Black women have carried this country on their backs while holding the disrespect that everyone else gives them in their laps, while still caring for themselves. America enhanced the disrespect for Black women on Sept. 23 when the verdict of Breonna Taylor’s case was presented. One of the three officers was indicted but it was not even for her murder. Instead, they indicted on charges of wanton endangerment after shooting into an apartment building next to Taylor’s home. This verdict was nothing but a spit in the face for the family of Taylor and a slap on the backs of Black women. What made it worse is that the mayor of Louisville put a 6:30 pm curfew on the city before the verdict hit the airwaves proving that he knew the decision was wrong. Then to follow up with a tweet pouring love and prayers to the officers were shot amid the riots is nothing but enraging. For six months, celebrities, “allies” and some of the Black community profited off this woman’s name making shirts, hats, bags, posters and magazine — covers anything they could plaster her name on. Her fiancé had to attend his lover’s wake before their wedding.
After hearing the verdict, after being in work with no service for five hours, I wept into my pillowcase because at any moment living here, I too could become Breonna Taylor. Taylor’s case was so straight forward. Nothing that anyone could get their hands on and twist the situation. Taylor was an EMT, an essential worker, that had a strong love for family and others. She wanted 2020 to be her year of improvement with every category of life from her getting married, having a baby, becoming a nurse, and just being happy. The 26-year-old did nothing and yet those three men stole her body and carried on with their lives. It was not surprising to hear the verdict but disheartening. To be Black in America is to not be cared for but to be a Black woman is to exist in a space that does not want you. Someone is always gunning to have your body.
Since the fifth grade, I have been aware that my body at any moment in time cannot be mine. That the body I care for and love can become stolen. The system is so corrupt that where I am from, they dig up the body of my ancestors to place Stepford houses on the land to move in the sons and daughters of the oppressors while keeping the word PLANTATION in bold brass letters on the sign. There is no way one can tell me that they are doing so in the name of justice.
If this country could not love a woman bettering herself and helping others, there is no way this country could love me or anyone that looks like me. If this case has taught me anything it is that it does not matter that I graduated from school with a 3.7 GPA, a published author, and soul for old music that enjoys Sundays on fall mornings or that I got to attend my dream university — but it has taught me that they will never care about my body.
