Feeling safe

The pool party pictures hit me harder than they might have because of other things that were going on.

I had been thinking about was a basic sense of security. That came from reading about police harassment, including one man who was stopped 258 times, mainly for trespassing, except it was happening at his job and where he lived.

That sounded bad enough, but a friend directed me to the This American Life episode where they talk about Miami Gardens, and they talk to him and his boss:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/548/cops-see-it-differently-part-two

It became more tragic then. There were a lot of people who were negatively affected by this, but what struck me most was for the man himself, how will he ever possibly feel safe again anywhere?

It reminded me of something I read long ago where children who were raised in war zones don't develop the same emotional skills and resilience. Those who had some time before the war and could remember that had those memories to sustain them. They knew a time of security. Never knowing that, their play is different and there is a heavier emotional toll. It's like, you know that post-traumatic stress can be bad, but what if it was only traumatic stress, all the time?

In light of that, it's something to consider in terms of common health issues among black people, and certainly in regards to this article:

http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/03/04/racial-battle-fatigue-seems-to-fuel-anxiety-disorder-among-african-americans/24132.html

Those things gave McKinney a context for me, along with the issues black girls face with their bodies being viewed as more sexual and less protected as covered in yesterday's post. There were three other things that all happened really close together that made it worse.

I live in the suburbs. In fact, I live in an unincorporated suburb where we don't even have city police - just county. I was downtown though, and talking with a friend who lives in the Portland city limits, and as we were talking she told me she sees the police hassling black kids a lot.

I know Portland, Oregon, in the liberal Pacific Northwest, is not supposed to be terribly racist. I'm not saying it couldn't be worse. For one thing, those kids are very unlikely to be killed by the police. They're also unlikely to feel comfortable, or like they belong or have value or have their community backing them up when they need it.

Then I read about Kalief Browder:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/08/kalief_browder_suicide_had_been_held_three_years_on_rikers_island_without.html

There was not reliable witness testimony or physical evidence, but because our courts are slow and prejudiced, he spent three years in Rikers, much of it in solitary, and he killed himself.

Maybe it was worse because I read the other article first:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law

That was in October, and he was still alive, and probably going to get some compensation from a settlement. He had a job, and was taking classes, but there was a sense of despair.

"People tell me because I have this case against the city I’m all right. But I’m not all right. I’m messed up. I know that I might see some money from this case, but that’s not going to help me mentally. I’m mentally scarred right now. That’s how I feel. Because there are certain things that changed about me and they might not go back... Before I went to jail, I didn’t know about a lot of stuff, and, now that I’m aware, I’m paranoid. I feel like I was robbed of my happiness.”

Kalief Browder killed himself on June 6th, the same day as the McKinney pool party. He probably did not know about it. I also don't know if she knew about it, but one of my girls attempted suicide on the 8th, and she is black.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/health/suicide-rate-for-black-children-surged-in-2-decades-study-says.html?_r=0

She did recover. She says now that she doesn't remember why she did it. That could be true; disassociation has been an issue for her. I also know that the issues that she has are made worse by her eating disorder, because despite that fact that she is beautiful, and she is certainly not fat, she always feels a need to become physically less than she is.

I don't know that it's connected, but if she wonders about whether there is room for her in this world, it would be hard to prove to her that she is welcome.

It would have been hard to make Kalief believe that he could get his happiness back.

It is not surprising that Dajerria Becton is having PTSD symptoms after the pool party. I worry about that. I worry about how her friends will feel after trying to help her and having to run - if they are carrying around feelings of helplessness. I worry about how she will handle things in the future, knowing that asking for help could get the person she asks killed. And then a church got shot up.

There was discussion after that - black people are saying that nowhere is safe, and how do you teach your kids that, and white people trying to tell them that it's not that bad.

I would like to be able to say it's not that bad. Having no safe place is a horrible thing to think and feel. It's worse because it's true.

That cannot stand. This cannot be allowed to be.