Amadou Diallo

It was this incident that made me aware what it means to be black in this country and run into the police. Actually more the police running after you.

Of course I knew all the stories about Black Panthers in the ’60s and ’70s and how police raided their homes and started shooting indiscriminately and killed so many. I even had a book with all the news stories about this.

But time had gone by and I’m not black and I didn’t live in this country for a long time. By the time I came back, it was with 2 kids trying to survive in a country where everything had tripled in expenses. Shock.

But then Amadou Diallo got shot. 41 bullets! It was February 4, 1999. And it didn’t stop there. Since then there has been a parade of police officers and racists targeting and killing Black people.

I have no answers except for all of us to stand up for this injustice whenever there is a chance. Support Black Lives Matter.

Here is the song that I played over and over again yesterday.

2 Replies to “Amadou Diallo”

  1. Wow!  Right on, Marianne.  Thanks for the reminder.  And the Bruce video.  So powerful. 
    I just finished Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.”   She’s a poet, this is her first novel, and she does a brilliant job.  Long–816 pages–and lots of characters over many generations.  And some of the subject matter is very difficult to get through.   But got through I did, though I had to put it down a few times.  But I always had to go back to it.  And very glad I did.   I even felt inclined to begin rereading, now that I’ve got all the characters under my belt.  It’s available at the library as a kindle e-book. xoxo

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