Last Words

Mama, Mama, Mama

Those words, that name

A plea, a cry to the giver of life

🖤

While his life was viciously being ripped away

Every black mother felt the pain of losing a child

He was

A man

A father

A human being that mattered

🖤

I can't breathe

As he gasped

🖤

Please man

Please, I can't breathe

They thought speaking meant he was getting enough air

While George kept begging for his life

🖤

You're going to kill me, man!

But did they stop?

No!

The weight of their hatred continued to push on his windpipe

🖤

They'll kill me, they'll kill me

The same way they strangled the lives of black people through

the slave trade, colonialism, apartheid, segregation, and litany

The same way we watched Eric garner get chocked

We watched and listened as they denied George his breathing rights

🖤

He pushed words out with the last bits of air he had left

No more could get down to his lungs

Calling out to his dead mother

Momma I love you

Tell my kids I love them

I'm dead

2

4

6

Over 8 minutes of a knee pressing down on his neck

While the perpetrator continued to inhale

His lungs never depleted of air

🖤

Mama

Mama, I'm through

🖤

Death lingered like a shadow

During a pandemic where many lives were lost

When so many were struggling to breathe

We were left breathless as a man struggled for air

Waiting on a ventilator that would never come

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There was no dignity for this black man

Does a counterfeit bill make one deserving of losing their life?

🖤

Why are we (Black people) still oppressed

They try to control everything, even our breath

I am tired of watching bodycam footage of another black life lost

When will those behind the camera put it inside themselves

Maybe then they will see

the hatred

for black lives in their hearts?

🖤

How many more graves will we dig

Before justice prevails for every black life

It is only when hate no longer fills the air

That we all can go out and freely breathe

......................................

"To be a N**** in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one's work. And part of the rage is this: It isn't only what is happening to you. But it's what's happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference,..."

- James Baldwin 1961

As we celebrate Black History Month. Let us remember all parts of our history!

Thank you for reading!