A eulogy, exhumed

A few months ago, I wrote an article about a young man who had his life stripped away from him. I wrote about him and others alike who have been carried away from this earth in the arms of injustice—I wrote for those who still are, and those who have been forgotten. Moreover, I envisioned the names of the people I love whose entire lives would be simplified to a hashtag if police brutality continues to be unaddressed.

I acknowledged the tardiness of my former eulogy thinking that the offenses were behind us. But after the events of the past two weeks, it was as if the bodies had been resurfaced just to be shot down once more: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, John Crawford...The streets of Ferguson, Missouri turned inside out with rage as a police officer who undoubtedly shot and killed a teenage boy walked away, protected by the bulletproof vest of privilege.

As the streets filled with fire, I wondered again how this could possibly be the age of sociocultural progression. As police lined the streets and 2,200 National Guard troops were deployed, the scene being crafted looked eerily similar to the system that Emmett Till, Martin Luther King and Malcom X left behind. Nevertheless, my grievances also originated from that the fact that I was not even surprised by the verdict. The deep-rooted system of racism and injustice reared its face again, and I was not the least bit astounded.

Why would it change? If a system has been built to teach law enforcement officers that it is acceptable to dehumanize individuals, particularly those that are not of their perceived caliber, why would they change it? It is almost nonsensical at this point to ask a failing system to renew itself, by itself.

When the institutions making the laws are the ones that are breaking them, we simply have to do better. We have to work hard to fixate ourselves so high on the hierarchy of privilege that the only option they have is to look up. We have to put more emphasis in our classrooms, to put more people of color in our courtrooms. Not just in the stands or outnumbered in the jury but with the gavel in our hands fighting for those who have been neglected. We have to change the mindsets of those who are currently influencing the legal systems. It is too deeply corrupted to be changed only by those currently dominating the system. Make this another kind of power movement and let these unfortunate circumstances empower us to become unimaginably present.

Notice I said power, not vengeance. Yes, we should absolutely be angry. Anger brings passion, and passion brings change. But imagine if we take the anger into our own hands and let it ignite flames in our body, giving us strength to keep going. If the pursuit of justice is terminated in a state of violence, blacks and other minorities will still be looked upon as criminals. We cannot let the lives of these young bodies dissipate into neglected space. We have to make sure that the sacrifice of the lives of these young men makes it into the history books. All I can think of is to pray for the dignity of this country. We still have bodies to save.

Kalifa Wright is a Trinity sophomore. This is her final column of the semester.