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By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?

Psalm 137: 1-4

This bible passage speaks to me of the state of Black America right now. Nobody should be singing or going about their business as usual in light of the continued carnage of Black bodies on our streets. It's becoming more and more frequent and the perpetrators are getting bolder.

We are in a sad, sad situation right now as a Black community. It's worse than when they beat us in the streets, used fire hoses to topple us like dominoes and dragged us behind their vehicles. Forget black on black killings for a minute — that sickness requires the Black community to take a different kind of stance, and needs to be dealt with by us.

I want to address the wanton killings of Black people by officers of the law, regardless of the victim's perceived criminal status. Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake and far too many others to name have shown that cops don't need a reason to shoot you —and it's always shoot to overkill.

This is from recent statistics on police shootings:

"Among Black Americans, the rate of fatal police shootings between 2015 and July 2020 stood at 31 per million of the population, while for white Americans, the rate stood at 13 fatal police shootings per million of the population."

I am reminded of a news story in 2015 about police departments using mug shots of living Black men as paper targets at their shooting ranges.

These street killings are not accidental. They are triggered by a perceived or imagined threat to police, or so they claim. More than likely, they are the result of a subliminal code implanted in the minds of law enforcement that triggers a response that when dealing with a Black person: It’s OK to employ forceful restraint (even if it’s not warranted) or, if needed, shoot to kill. And for as long as it works and they get away with it, they will continue to do it.

All the protests that dissolve into looting and burning, only make our haters' case stronger, while detracting from the real issues of injustice, racism and violence unleashed on Black people. When are the Ivy League Blacks, the Alphas, Kappas, Deltas and AKAs gonna show up in the streets en mass? When are the Black CEOs and board members of large corporations going to take off their corporate attire and don Black Lives Matter t-shirts in the streets? When are the Black elected officials going to stop cozying up to white power and do what we sent them to Congress, State Houses and local government to do? When are we going to stop worrying about the 2020 election that will put another white man in his House and start worrying about the destruction that's taking place in our own houses?

I am a captive to this violence. All Black people are. We can't be singing songs and making music like it's not happening to all of us. This is a strange land we're in, and an even stranger time like we've not seen before. The one weapon we have not deployed in defending ourselves is our collective economic power. What would it take to get the 38 million Black people in the United States to undertake a massive boycott of everything in America? Or even 10% of that 38 million? What we are expending in human capital far outweighs what we are getting in return.

I know it’s highly impractical and the unity required of such a move just ain't gonna happen because the collective will is not there. I speak out of the frustration that we can't just keep burying our dead like it's a normal part of our life cycle. I don't know that we, as a community, have made any demands of either political party in exchange for our votes? Is there even a Black agenda that they respect? For sure the upper crust Black folks have made their personal deals with the white power structure, so as to maintain their status. But what about the rest of us? What are they negotiating for the rest of us?

Kamala Harris is a pacifier (you know, the rubber kind you give babies) to soothe us and get us dreaming of the possibility that one day we will have a Black/Indian/Caribbean woman as president, so we don't ask the hard question of the candidate like, "What are you going to do for my vote now?" We're going to go through another election cycle with nothing on the table, no one being held accountable on day one to ensure justice for us, ameliorate racism or pass an equality act strictly for us.

So now, what do we have so far? Only empty campaign rhetoric that will quickly dissipate as soon as the doors of the Oval Office close and the 2021 Congress takes its seat.

Carolyn K. Erwin

Writing since February 2022 · 1 story contributed