Dear Walter,
I can’t talk to anyone else. Not my family, not social media, not my significant other, no one. I can only talk to you, because if I talk to anyone else I will clock them right in the face.
How the fuck did this happen, Walter? Huh? I saw you run for your life. I can’t even begin to imagine the fear you felt, something that I feel a lot of our brothers and sisters, and damn, even our babies have to be knowledgable about. I saw this, this weasel take out his gun and go into a shooting stance and gun you down, like target practice. I saw you lurch and heave as the bullets tore into your back. I saw you crumple and fall, dying in a pool of your own blood.
And that motherfucker didn’t even have the nerve to call for your help. Or even be panicked for snatching a life. Instead, he mutters some lies over his radio and then calmly places a taser next to you. As if you hurt him! I know you were there, shaking your damn head, like “I can’t believe this dude is really trying to frame me,” But of course he would, sir. He never saw you as a human being in the first place.
You wanna know what’s fucked up, Walter? I thought that things might be different. I thought with you, it was an open and shut case. No discussion. None of this “two sides bullshit,” as some people in the media have tried when trying to talk about racism. Old heads and people much smarter tried to tell me, to warn me, that America has raped, pissed, enslaved, smacked and killed us over and over again. And like the dumb ass I was, I said, “But they got video though?!?!”
The old heads laughed at me, Walter. Then they reminded me.
“Don’t you remember, when a nigga got choked out on camera, and they let him free, and jailed the man doing the recording?”
“Don’t you remember, when a nigga got shot shot in the head, and they let him free, because he felt his life was threatened?
Don’t you remember, when a nigga, a little baby boy, got shot, and they let him free, because he had a toy gun?
Don’t you remember, when a nigga got shot, with his hands up, on the ground, and when he asked why he got shot, the cop said, I don’t know.
And we don’t even wanna talk about our sistas now, do we?
Come on son. And they were right, Walter. They were right.
But you know what really pisses me off Walter? That they used everything in the book to besmirch your name, as if that mattered. You not paying child support, and some other shit. As if that had anything to do with you getting shot. As if you deserved it. And every time this happens, they, (my bad Walter, I’ma just say it), white people (not all of them, because of white fragility, feelings over lives, right?) keep asking for peace. That this is how the justice system works. Don’t riot. Calm down. Don’t riot. You’re not helping things by bringing up race. Don’t riot. Actually, its kinda that nigga’s fault, if you really think about it. DON’T. RIOT.
Fuck you.
So what am I gonna do, Walter? And I know, I’m making it about me. I’m sorry about that. I can’t even think about your family right now. That they had to sit in that courtroom and stomach the hypocrisy and the total farce of that process. They had to sit there and get some nonsense from that one juror that said, “I cannot in good conscience consider a guilty verdict… my heart does not want to have to tell the Scott family that the man who killed their son, brother, and father is innocent,” What an evil, spineless, racist, coward. But he ain’t the only problem.
I wish you peace and love, brother. I wish the country that you served did you right, instead of doing what they always do to us. But I swear you didn’t die for nothing. It aint gonna happen right now, but that revolution is coming. We are going to have to get uncomfortable, and sacrifice a lot. We ain’t ready right now. But we will be. I feel like you right next to me, not trying to comfort me or telling me that age old lie, “everything is gonna be alright,” Nah, you telling me to get up, be angry and do something!
I hear you, Walter. I got you.
Rest in Eternal Peace,
Kwesi