Countdown to 30: 30 days, 30 Lessons (Day 28 - Sometimes Words Fail You)

I am running out of words to express rage. I am actually scared because I don't even feel rage the same. It's a low rumble iin my stomach now. A simmering that is so constant that I only really acknowledge it when it flares, like a sports injury that only hurts when its cold. The damage is done, but you learn to live with it somehow.

That's how I feel after the verdict for the killer of Jordan Davis.

I'm out of words. I'm glad it's not my job to write, because I would fail. I want to scream and cry and just fall asleep. Luckily, there are people who are better at this than me. Who can take that rage and communicate it effectively. Ta-Nehisi Coates is one such person. He has written amazing things on a variety of topics, but I want to share highlights.

From Black Boy Interrupted

And this will happen again, must happen again, because our policy is color-blind, but our heritage isn't. An American courtroom claiming it can be colorblind denies its rightful inheritance. An American courtroom claiming it can be colorblind is a drug addict claiming he can walk away after just one more hit.

From On the Killing of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn

I insist that the irrelevance of black life has been drilled into this country since its infancy, and shall not be extricated through the latest innovations in Negro Finishing School. I insist that racism is our heritage, that Thomas Jefferson's genius is no more important than his plundering of the body of Sally Hemmings, that George Washington's abdication is no more significant than his wild pursuit of Oney Judge.

From Trayvon Martin and the Irony of American Justice

I have seen nothing within the actual case presented by the prosecution that would allow for a stable and unvacillating belief that George Zimmerman was guilty.
That conclusion should not offer you security or comfort. It should not leave you secure in the wisdom of our laws. On the contrary, it should greatly trouble you. But if you are simply focusing on what happened in the court-room, then you have been head-faked by history and bought into a idea of fairness which can not possibly exist.

My words have failed me. I am glad his did not.

Courtney