Philando Castile: As My Friend Marco Said, Killed Twice. Once By A Police Officer. Once By The Judicial System.

I look at you, and don't know what to say. Well, it's not exactly you, but your likeness. The color photo I found of you when I Googled your image after you and Alton got shot and killed by police officers. Alton on July 5th, 2016, and you the very next day on July 6th, 2016. I cut the background out of both of your likenesses and gently taped them onto the umbrella I decorated for the Second Line Memorial organized here in Providence, Rhode Island last summer.You were surrounded by white lace that draped the umbrella's panels. You and Alton were regal kings. But I immediately felt profoundly sad that this object without words told the world that your life was cut short. Cut short at the hands of a police officer. I thought of your girlfriend, and her four year-old daughter who had to watch you be killed.After the memorial that started at the Providence River and finished at India Point Park by the water, I kept the umbrella in my living room. It was propped up on our window seat, a shrine I wasn't ready to dismantle. When I finally did two weeks later, unraveling the lace trim that edged each panel, and wrapped around the handle, I carefully pulled your photo off as well. I placed your and Alton's images on the glass side table by the couch, with a candle, not lit, but as a symbolic indoor memorial. The candle also reminded me of how in my religion of Judaism, we light what's called a yahrzeit candle on the anniversary of the death of our loved ones.  The one year anniversary of your passing is approaching.  I will light a candle for Alton, on July 5th, and for you, Philando, on July 6th.From the table, I moved your image to my writing desk. First you laid flat right by my computer screen, and soon after, beside the mini-easel displaying my daughter Darla's artwork on the upper ledge of the desk. It's where you still are perched. Alton on the left, the Dread Scott print that reads: Why Do We Assume That You Are Racist, and you. When I look at the images of the both of you, Alton is smiling, looking straight ahead, but you, your face, your eyes hold a more serious gaze. When I look at you, your eyes meet mine, and seem as they will meet the eyes of anyone that looks in your direction.This is the social media poem I created on Facebook (something I did daily for five years) from my friends' Status Updates, the day Philando Castile was killed:7/6/16 PHILANDO CASTILE woke up to this.crying againbefore workliterally, beforethe ink driedon my#altonsterling postthis happenedhave abroken tail light - you die (#philandocastile)these shootings.I haveno words.my soul aches.and once againI was overcomeby the realitythat no matterhow much wecontribute andbuild america,our livesdo not matterland of thefree, but wehave toshed tearsand live inconstant fearbecause wehave black brothers,black nephews,black children"we loveour children...they're brutalized.it's too much...it's too much."I wantto holler,want to scream,want to cry...I am raising astrong young malehis raceis #humanwhen I getpulled over...will I die uncle?only somewill understandmy pain.I cry outto God,to keepmy son safeoh, my very heartis just sovery sadto learn this...as her4 yearold daughterwho witnessedit all screams"I'm herefor you mommy." I have been looking back at you these last eleven months. Sometimes I talk to you. Sometimes I've imagined you saying to me, what are we going to do? How are you all going to abolish this supremacist system? Something needs to be done. And I imagine you saying this in a calm voice, not a bowing, polite, forgiving tone that white American media likes to pin on Black folks. But, like the tone you used with the officer, who still didn't care that you were doing everything so perfectly right, but because you were Black, all he saw was: wrong, criminal, cop killer. I imagined your voice like the voice you used caring for all of the 500 school children who you worked with in the school cafeteria, who you knew by first name, and whose food allergies you knew, too. You were a protector. Who protected you?Your girlfriend, a shining Diamond, reflecting her given name, tried to protect you, to give your death honor, to at last, win you justice, when she, with solid footing, streamed the aftermath of your shooting death. She spoke to the officer with decorum right after watching him kill you. She knew what she needed to do to not be the second one dead that day, to be able to return to, and comfort your fiance's daughter who was sitting in the back seat of the car, and who also witnessed you get shot and killed.And the jury came back to us with this mess. Not Guilty. And I wept. And the country wept. And I looked you straight in the eye, and said I was sorry, which wasn't nearly enough. And I watched your mother, Valerie Castile, right after the verdict, make a statement. She was at first indignant that the reporter asked her for one, but then, in grief, and anger, she spoke her truth, and the truth of this nation. "...the system continues to fail Black people..My son loved this city, and this city killed my son...and you're next...they will come after you, and you, and you...we're not evolving as a civilization..we're devolving...we're going back to 1969..what is it going to take?"And I keep glancing at you as I write this. On the eve of the release of the police dash cam video my heart broke all over again, and the heart of millions of people in this country, and around the world, their hearts broke, too. I will not give space here to the deniers of this injustice that was as plain as day on July 6th, 2016, and even clearer on June 20, 2017, the day this video was released. But I would like to ask the deniers to look me in the eye after watching the video of Diamond right after the shooting, handcuffed in the back seat of the police car with her four year-old daughter sobbing, and telling her mother to leave the handcuffs on because "I don't want you to get shooted, too." A four year-old girl was forced to be the protector. I'd like to ask you how well do you think this four year-old will fare living with the traumatic memory of her mother's fiance killed right before her eyes? And, what about Diamond? You can hear an officer on the dash cam video say "have her in custody.." as if she is a suspect in a wrongdoing. She is casually, without feeling, told Philando is dead while at the police station. Where is our humanity? Where is their justice?I look at you, Philando, and I see you want to have faith in all of us who mourn you. Faith that Black, Brown and White people will come together, because it will only work if we all do, and want to have faith we will do whatever it takes to liberate Black people. You want to have faith that we will reform policing, hold police accountable for their actions, and fix this broken court system. Faith that we will do this for your mother, Valerie, for your fiance, Diamond, and for her daughter.Faith that we will do what needs to be done so that every boy, girl, woman, and man with Brown skin can live free, and not wonder if they will die today.I look at you and reach for your photo. I curl back the paper's edge where  over time, it's turned inward at your shoulder. I straighten out where your ear got bent. I notice the faint, vertical lines streaming down your face, your shirt pink instead of it's original blue, because my printer was running low on ink on that day. I notice again that you are wearing your work lanyard around your neck. You are not smiling, but your eyes are, or one seems to be trying to. The other is pleading, like your mother pleaded to all of us, to do something.I place your photo back on the desk next to the Dread Scott print, next to Alton. I say, good night.I think of friends and acquaintances of color, close at hand, who have shared in my presence their  life experiences with looming threat, with lack of protection. In a meeting last week to reflect and organize actions after the return of the Not Guilty verdict, Black Studies scholar, and community activist, Marco McWilliams said, "..with the Philando Castile verdict...and we know this is not something new, but a continuum...we know that we, as Black people have no consent over our own bodies." He moved his hands across his torso, and over his tee shirt that listed in bold white letters on black, the names of Trayvon, Tamir, Sandra, Eric, and on, and on. Having demonstrated and exclaimed that he and others that look like him are open game, are not able to protect themselves, Marco continued, "They might say slavery ended..chattel slavery, maybe, ..but we know there are other means of enslaving Black people..." The group of long-term and newer advocates for justice, sitting around the table, nodded their heads knowingly.When I shared Marco's words with a new friend, Maxwell, who is in his 20's, he said that he doesn't become vocal, because if he did, he'd become a target. He added that his dark skin puts his odds higher for encounters with police--at least once a week--making his percentage a little higher than the average Black man, of getting shot by police.We know change,  and the dismantling of all of the systems that allow all of this to happen over and over again, is bigger than this heart-breaking event, but change must come because the psychic pain and fear and danger that comes with this, on top of the 400 years of history that comes before July 5, 2016, and June 16, 2017, for Black and Brown people in this country, has got to remedied. Please listen to Philando Castile, to Valerie Castile, to Diamond Reynolds, and Diamond's four year-old daughter. Please do something. Social Media Poem written on June 16, 2017 PHILANDO CASTILE I'm trying right now tofind the right wordsto articulate thesurreal inevitability ofpolice-involved killingslike this and theverdicts that follow.and I am notable to do it withoutrepeating themillions of wordsI and countless othershave already said whentrying to find the right words toarticulate the surreal inevitabilityof police-involved killings likethis and the verdicts that follow.officer jeronimo yanezfatally shot Castileduring a traffic stoplast yeardead fordriving while blackyet another hideousfailure of our 'justice' systemthe state killed Philando Castiletwice: once with bullets,then with legal injusticePhilando Castile's mother responds:"I'm mad as hell right now.yes I am!"there is no"#alllivesmatter" people. justracist people whodon't want othersto have thesame rights, benefits,safety and quality oflife as themno worries, trumpasaursand trumpolodytesyou never have to worryblack lives don't matterIt's a hell of an existenceto know that when youwalk out the doorin the morning thatyou can be killed becausesomeone whodoesn't know youat all is"In Fear For Their Life."because your dark skinlabels you a THREATif that is the standardfor killing an innocent personthen riddle me thiswe are in fear of our livesevery minute andwe aren’t killing you  ____________SOURCES:Poem 7/6/16 Contributors: Ericka R. Gomes, Marco A. McWilliams, Tory Bullock, Shemika L. Moore, Allyson Brathwaite-Gardner, Desiree Mcknight, The Root (D.L. Hughley quote), Charles M. Blow, Korlu Young, Ari Brisbon, Kym Williams, Sherry Gordon, Ken HargePoem 6/16/17 Contributors:  Donald King (title), VerySmartBrothas.com, HuffPost Black Voices, Dred-Scott Keyes, Kristina Contreras Fox via Jim Vincent, Marco A. McWilliams, Christopher Johnson, Warren Leach,