Dear Society,

It’s me again, and as tired as you are of hearing from me, I promise you, I am far more exhausted. Because if you’re hearing from me, it means there is another way by which you have failed me, have failed a Black mother, father, son, daughter, and the Black community as a whole. It means that again you have succumbed to your vile and reprobate flesh. It means your basic instinct and need to inflict violence won over all else again and a Black life suffers again and pays again with their life.

Two years ago, I first wrote to you seeking justice in Hamden, Connecticut for two Black lives you attempted to end when you were out of your jurisdiction. Last year, I wrote to you again demanding justice not in one state but in three for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and now, I write to you because I know you think this is my last letter. I write to you because I know you think the verdict of Derek Chauvin’s trial has left us, as a people, satisfied and you in the free and clear, but you couldn’t be more wrong and in greater denial.

You’re confused, I’m sure because you thought convicting George Floyd’s murderer would change how I feel about you, would mean there’s no more work for you to do, but you’re wrong. 

George Floyd’s murderer was convicted, yes, but that is no comfort to a people who’ve been murdered, enslaved, and brutalized since they were brought here. There is no comfort when your systems accommodate and protect Whiteness to ensure it is preserved at all times – even when it shouldn’t be. Despite all the crimes committed in the name of White supremacy, jealousy, and pure hate, many White police officers and men and women are always exonerated, excused, and redeemed somehow as if they don’t have privilege and access, as if there was a reason, any reason, they murder women in their homes, they choke men in the street, they murdered a man going on a daily run, or they follow children home from the store. Nothing excuses or warrants violence and your violence always begets the death of Black people.

Don’t get me wrong, this verdict is something, but we are so very far from progress. Because what you won’t do is open up all the cases – the Trayvon Martin Case, Sandra Bland, etc. and convict those police officers, those White individuals, because you’re not actually trying to change the course of history, but only make it appear as such. This was a biscuit to throw to get us to retreat, but I give you back your biscuit and demand change and demand you do better because we’ve only just begun. You want us to take the “win” and how could we when so many of us, so many Black men and women and children had to die for us to arrive here? Black men and women and children had to die on camera for you to actually do anything and instead of taking immediate action, you had a trial that went on far longer than it should’ve to determine what all of America knew. We knew George Floyd was murdered and his cause of death wasn’t because of drugs or alcohol but asphyxiation. His cause of death was the life literally being choked out of him, and we didn’t need a jury or experts to substantiate that.

And how could we take comfort in this verdict when we continue to be murdered for no other reason than the fact that we are Black which, to you, makes us a threat? How could we truly celebrate or sigh with relief when literally nothing else has changed? We still make up more of the prison population (32%) than our own population in this country (13%). We are still fighting to overcome implicit and overt biases in classrooms, the workplace and virtually everywhere else we go. We are still treated as second-class citizens in a country we built. We are still fighting for our very lives, fighting for you to understand that we are not presuming better by any means, nor are we below anyone or subhuman in any way, shape or form, but equally created in God’s image and love just like you were.

There can never truly be any comfort or relief around you anyway because there are still senseless murders that don’t get caught on camera or covered by news outlets. 

Because George Floyd’s murderer had accomplices and his greatest accomplice of all is an ideal on which our country was founded – White supremacy.  

You call it justice, you celebrate and you pat yourself on the back as if any of this alters our course of history and brings George Floyd back. As if any of this returns him back to his daughter and undoes the trauma of having seen yet another Black life senselessly taken. 

I never cease to be amazed at your hypocrisy and brazen agenda. If any of these victims – George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and far too many others had lacked melanin, had been shades paler, and lived in different zip codes, none of this would’ve ever happened. None of them would’ve been harmed nor treated like savages, like animals who need to be put down. That is no coincidence. That is training and it is deliberate.

You deny the inherent injustice on which this country was founded. You manipulate facts to justify your violence and the death it breeds. You twist narratives and rob children of their childhoods, of their ability to be children, and their God-given right to live. You malign and villainize Black men, women, and children as a way of explaining away their unsubstantiated deaths. And we are certainly way past the point of things getting out of hand because how can you possibly explain or justify killing a woman in her home while she is asleep? Pinning a man down with your knee for nearly ten minutes? Following a murdering a man on a routine run?

I’m tired of having to talk to you, tired of extending the list of slain Black lives. I’m mortified by your methods but despite my fatigue, my letters can’t stop and they won’t. I have to make you conscious of the things you refuse to see, of the accountability you refuse to take after all this time and all this bloodshed. I don’t know when it’ll click for you, when you’ll stop when you’ll reflect, and when you’ll repent, but until you do, I will continue to denounce the violence that you continue to incite and perpetuate. We do not stand for the same things and you have to know that. Your work has only just begun and so have my letters. I don’t want to have to write another one but it would only be wishful thinking and insanity for me to entertain the possibility. With that being said, you will be hearing from me soon.

Expressly,
Your Greatest Adversary