Walter Scott’s death – and Trayvon’s, Michael’s, Tamir’s and Eric’s, all of whom became so familiar to us in death that we refer to them by first name only – is the end of the promise of America. It’s the decay of whatever moral infrastructure we have left as a nation; it’s confirmation of the ugly truth that a nation, conceived in slavery and once dedicated to the proposition that not all men are created equal, will allow that divide to long endure.  So many white people, satisfied that they are on the right side of justice in the face of law enforcement, this week watched video footage of an unarmed black man getting shot in the back while fleeing from a white police officer and thought merely, “Well, that’s terrible”. “That’s terrible” is not enough. It has never been enough, but as the number of black men murdered by police escalates to numbers beyond reprehensible, beyond coincidental, watching another supposed citizen of this free country shot down with no regard for his humanity ought to elicit more than audible regret.  Yes, it is terrible. Of course it’s terrible. But that is the least of what it is.  The officer, Michael Slager, who shot and killed Scott has been charged with murder, but that is not enough either, because we all know after this last year that if Slager had not been caught on camera, there would be no murder charge – and in truth, he may never be convicted, despite the video footage. As sure as we are black, the last year portends that there will be yet another prone black body soon enough over which we can express the “appropriate” amount of outrage.  But for those of us left alive, it’s no less damning to see white people evince a palpable sense of discomfort at the actions of the killers, to righteously condemn “those” white people – the police, racists – as to watch others defend them. This is not about “good” white people and “bad” white people: this is systemic, and it is ingrained and it cannot be rooted out by declaring that it’s due to the actions of one bad apple, or even one tree of them. We need to feel like the cries from white America go deeper than sympathy, however heartfelt it might seem; we need to feel – and Lord knows, we’ve been working on how many different ways to say this – like black lives matter.  Every time, though, the onus seems to fall on us to explain to you how to make our lives matter in a way that humanizes us, not just you – in a way that recognizes our empathy and compassion as we bleed and die, instead of fortifying your indulgent anxiety. We declare on social media that #BlackLivesMatter, and are met with “#alllivesmatter”, and we understand that we don’t matter as a part of a larger group of humanity. Although each black person matters as a person, it has become far too easy right now to picture us being hunted like we’re something less than that.  It must not keep happening. No matter how much we encourage our black boys, men, girls and women to love themselves, to walk in strength and power and to believe in the equality we’ve long been promised, somehow, somewhere, a trigger still gets pulled and another black life gets extinguished. Despite the beloved credo that we “are all human”, our shared humanity always plays second string to who has supremacy in the hierarchies that humans create.  My nine year-old, Kofi, told me recently about a conversation he had with a white friend, who said: “I get really nervous talking about race because I don’t want to say anything racist.” To which my son responded: “It’s not that hard if you’re not racist.”  It’s not hard to avoid saying racist things; it’s even less difficult to understand that while my son’s friend worries about saying something racist, my son worries about being shot because someone is racist. You will never be accused of “pulling the race card”, never wonder whether you didn’t get the job because you are black, never ponder why that person seems to be following you around a department store, never seize with terror when you notice a cop car driving behind you when you know you’re obeying the letter of the law. You will never live in a country that defined people who looked like you as less than a full person.  Think about that the next time we all watch with horror as a black man loses his life at the hands of a white law enforcement officer. It’s not a coincidence. It’s by design.
The deaths of so many black men cannot be reduced to ‘good’ white people and ‘bad’. The problem is systemic and ingrained