It's Friday, Feb. 24th @3:35am. I have only slept a few hours since Thursday @1am. I was awaken by the sound of what most parents dread but many have experienced far too often. But this one this one hit differently. I stand in the middle of my living room and I see his lips moving. I try to comprehend the sounds that are coming out of the mouth of the Caucasian suit clad Fairfax county detective who was accompanied by another, but female, detective who silently looked on witnessing with supposed commentary, "another (black) mother being told of her child's deadly and unseemly fate. I do vaguely recall hearing him but I was way ahead of where this was going and it was as if I had spiritually left the room to seek shelter on the floor of a closet to hide beneath the longest hanging clothes. I thought just be still. Just don't make any noise. Just don't even @#!% breath your reality won't need to accept the story neatly written down of what they had traveled across the Wilson bridge linking up with one of PG County's own to obtain both a positive identification and a N.O.K. notification at the same time.
The next 24 hours consisted of mellifluously flowing waterfall-like tears. Deep penetrating voluminous wailing unfortunately that other mothers know particularly too well. Add in pure Christian black Holy Ghost worship to God the Father and Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. Also included where these unending thoughts of trying to play the tape, not all the way through, but rewound just to the point where how the scene played out across the early evening Channel 4 Breaking News of a shoplifter who has fled Tysons Corner mall on foot is aggressively being chased on foot by two Fairfax County police out the mall, through the garage, across the parking lot and into a patchy wooded area adjacent to the mall ends up in the morgue? Unarmed. Unarmed. Unarmed. Unarmed. Unarmed.
Yet again we are subliminally being asked to accept this level of unjust self-imposed judge and jury blue-god spirit that has yet again unleashed an unprecedented evil across American likened only to the atrocities of Jim Crow to further divide the color lines, families, race groups, communities, and the nation, to what end? Narrative Composition. Shoot to kill and we will make-up the detailed specifics as the lights flash, the red record button is lit, and the Twitter clicks are echoed in the room.
Justice. Mercy. Freedom. Liberty for all, nah just for some. My great grandmother, the late Della C. Baird's, voice rings out "IF NOT NOW, WHEN?"
