Mi send yu go a school
Grandma Bernice
Translation – you got a good education so I expect you to think and act accordingly. Words of my grandmother still haunting me from her grave.
I did a lot of reading this past summer. A lot more than I normally make time to do. Booking time to read came about when out of necessity I had to breathe. I urgently sent a group text to a group of sister friends to announce the birth of the Vive Le Dash Book Club. “Comrades! we have a meeting in the Ladies Zoom,” I triumphantly announced to my meticulously curated group of book clubbers. And so it was. Just like that. I was able to eke out a breathing in a break out room on zoom with my girls performing restorative surgery. The spontaneous combustion of the book club and booklist was nothing short of a reckoning wrought by Pandemic and Pandemonium in the land.
First book (proffered by me) on our list: Overcoming Speechlessness by Alice Walker
But I digress from the true intent of my writing here today. I am writing to say that Senator Corey Booker’s recent line of questioning in the Supreme Court nominee moved me. His pre-occupation with Judge Amy Barrett’s current book list triggered me and brought me back to that same place of labored breath. Desperately clawing at my neck, sucking air, breathing rage, seeking knowledge about what it means to be Judging from the bench. Booker casually invited Barrett to comment on any books she may have recently created space to read. She returned to him an answer, void of substance and scholarship. We had all grown accustomed to her vacated answers in her confirmation hearing, but this particular non response caught my ear.
This was no mere matter of policy. It’s criminal. Once again I was rendered Speechless when realization dawned like a thunderclap, that a candidate for the Supreme Court Justice of America had no books playing in her ear about race and justice. Nothing. Nada. No Fires Kindled in her soul.
The Searing Truths raging across the land were Inaudible to Her Honour.
Meanwhile In my little upended corner of the universe….
I couldn’t finish the grueling demands of my work as school administrator in a pandemic fast enough. I could never find enough time to devour books and articles, stories and posts, examine writings on the wall. Furtive dives into dark corners of historical fiction and non fiction occurred at midnight. Daybreak found me striding through literary halls of shame, peeling away layers of post traumatic imprints, peering into sanitized syllabi….all aimed at meaning making for me and those I serve. But mostly for me. The deep dives were for me. A way to find breathing room.
What does Madame Barrett mean when she shame facedly admits that she has read nothing, learned nothing new about the plight of her fellow humans over whose lives she holds court and sway!
“So I just want to give you an opportunity today to share what studies, articles, books, law review articles, or commentary you have read regarding racial disparities present in our criminal justice system.”
Senator corey booker
2020 has been brutish, hellish, relentless. Even if you bore witness to it from light years away or a mere 400 years ago, it most certainly has left an indelible incision on your soul. The rupturing and the reckoning; the questioning and interrogating of structural deficits. The wrestling with truth and denial; love and hatred (but most of all the shame), surely cannot be lost even on the average citizen. Let alone the learned. Let alone the Judge and the Jury of that John crowed tinged Judicial system of things.
“Forgive me for interrupting … but I was actually asking specifically any books you can name that you’ve read on this subject, or law review articles, anything that you specifically read outside of the sentencing guidelines?”
Senator Corey Booker
When in 2012 Trayvon’s life was sacrificed, we thought surely our justice system would pivot and accept the solemn offering of his life. But it was not to be. Zimmerman and Judas played their roles to the hilt. They dimmed The Light so we could see the embers of Social justice shining through. But here we are in 2020 AD still with original sins and empty truths we hold dear.
“Well, Sen. Booker, I will say what I have learned about it has mostly been in conversations with people, and at Notre Dame as at many other universities,” Barrett said. “It’s a topic of conversation in classrooms, but it’s not something that I can say, yes, I’ve done research on this and read X, Y, and Z.”
Judge Amy
Cases in point Emmett Till (14yrs), lynched 1955, Trayvond Martin (17yrs), sacrificed 2012, Hadiya Pendleton(15yrs), murdered, 2013, Michael Brown (18yrs) killed 2014, Tamir Rice (12yrs) executed in 2014, Eric Garner (43yrs) executed 2014, Freddie Gray (25yrs) execution 2015, Clementa Pinckney(41yrs) assassinated, 2015, Sandra Bland (28yrs) hanged 2015, Alton Sterling (37yrs) executed 2016, Philando Castille (32yrs) executed 2016, Jordan Edwards (15yrs) executed in 2017, Botham Jean (26yrs) killed in 2018 while eating ice cream on his couch, Stephon Clark (22yrs), executed in 2018, Oran Watson (41yrs) gunned down 2018, Atatiana Jefferson (28yrs) executed in 2019, Elijah McClain (23yrs), strangulated 2019, Breonna Taylor, (26yrs) executed in March,2020, Ahmaud Arbery, lynched February 2020. George Floyd (46yrs), executed May, 2020, Rashaud Brooks (27yrs), murdered June 2020
The gentle Lady Amy cuddles on her couch with her adopted black children. Shedding tears, while insulated and protected by the Status Quo.
The drumbeat for Justice reaches a crescendo, while the silence of the Judge is deafening. The wall hangings, the monuments of shame elicit no need to read on and make text to world connections. Nothing new, no originality, no new thinking form tracks in her mind, just a mere trail of tears while sitting and watching from the couch like a potato.
In George Floyd (Perry)s 2nd grade boyish script he wrote, “When I grow up, I want to be a Supreme Court judge. When people say, ‘Your Honor, he did rob the bank,’ I will say, ‘Be seated.’ And if he doesn’t, I will tell the guard to take him out. Then I will beat my hammer on the desk. Then [everybody] will be quiet,” wrote Floyd.
George Perry Floyd
George Floyd’s scholarly writings are a study in originality. And after one has read his aspirations, witnessed his untimely death, and cried with their sons and daughters, one must be moved to get schooled about what caused this young boy’s dreams to come crashing down to the streets of the metropolis crushed and silenced.
If one has attended institutions of higher learning and moves through the world in high impact roles then the spirit must move you to find a way, to get in the way. Judge Amy, your parents sent you to school, use your brain, activate your amygdala from its privilege induced stupor. Open a book and read!
Use your tools and your learning, be original, intentional about your work as Judicial Supremacist. George Floyd was crucified in 8mins and 46 secs. If peradventure the arc of justice should confirm you as Supreme Court judge today, just think, you’ll have a lifetime to resurrect his dream.
Start off your Judicial duties with a paragraph from Just Mercy
Le' D-ash 