The Price of a Doll

Imagine, you’re a little girl. Maybe two. Maybe three. Ah, no, you’re four. No need to imagine. You’re sitting in the back seat with your mommy and daddy. This is your happy place. You love going places with your parents. Words like institutional racism, racist rhetoric, the white imagination, and abusive cops who assassinate black children with impunity…these words carry no real meaning for you. Words that do make you happy: outside, candy, toys, and maybe sister. But this afternoon, this day when you are out with your family, feeling so carefree, feeling so alive, feeling so much like a child, you hear, “Get the fuck out of the car!”

Then your daddy is snatched out of the car and slammed into the side of a police car. He’s a rag doll receiving punishing blows to the back of his head. Then slammed into a police vehicle. “I’ll put a cap in your head,” the man who’s slamming your daddy into the car says. “Do what the fuck I say,” he continues to yell. Why is he so upset with your daddy, you wonder. Your daddy’s not doing anything. The man tells him to get out of the car, he does. He tells him to cooperate, he does. Each of daddy’s movements is orchestrated by the scary man; your daddy is just like the puppet the white lady used when she entertained you kids at the library a few weeks ago. The scary man kicks your daddy’s legs violently apart and daddy almost falls, but the scary man yanks him back up and slams his face into the side of the car again. You don’t want to turn away from what’s happening to daddy, but your mommy has started to cry so you turn your attention back to her.

Mommy is crying uncontrollably. You’ve never heard her cry like this. You want to comfort her. You reach out and touch her tears. Strange. You pull your hand away, stare at the liquid. Put your hand back again. She won’t stop crying. “It doesn’t open,” she continues to cry as the scary man with a gun yells at her to “Open the fucking door” and “Put your hands over your head.” Then, “You’re gonna fucking get shot!” You don’t know what a gun is. No, scratch that. You don’t know the power of that weapon. In less than a minute, you could become an orphan. Parentless. Grief-stricken. A statistic.

Then you’re both outside the car. You and mommy. And the scary man is trying to grab you from your mommy’s arms. He grabs your arm hard. It starts to hurt. Another strange voice calls out. “Hey, hey, hey. Snatching on a woman, don’t do that. We have to live here.” You can’t see who is behind this new voice. But now the scary man who is screaming at your mommy stops trying to snatch you out of her arms. Still, you can’t relax. Because now he’s yelling at your mommy. And your arms is throbbing with pain. “Put her on the ground.” And now you’re crying. Your tears no longer frozen. Tears flow. Your mommy and daddy are gone. You feel fear that you’ve never known. You don’t know where you are. Where your parents are. Only that you’re not together. The scary men with guns took them away.

You can’t stop crying. You don’t want to. What you want is to stop hearing mommy’s voice in your head. To not hear her crying. You don’t want to remember how you felt her heart racing. The unfamiliar rhythmic beat of an unjust system. A system that views black people as others. Others is not good. You wish you could stop seeing that man slam your daddy into the side of that car. There’s no way to shut off the sounds or shut out the images. They play over and over. Even when mommy and daddy show back up. What if, you wonder. Can someone come and take them again? Will the scary man return?

What mommy doesn’t tell you when she returns is that the scary men were Phoenix police officers who were upset because, well, you know that pretty doll you saw when you were in the store, the one you picked up and accidentally carried with you, well, someone reported your theft. Such a big word for small hands like yours. It’s a lesson mommy hoped you wouldn’t have to learn until much later in life, but black children, no matter how young, can never enjoy the privilege of being viewed as children. To some, our children always appear to be much older than they are. So, the person who called the police that day probably saw a teenager, not a four-year-old.

It was a cheap doll. Scratch that. The price doesn’t matter. It was a doll. Just a doll. They took mommy and daddy away from you because of a doll. And mommy and daddy don’t know how to explain that to you. They could speak the words, but in their hearts, they know, you won’t understand because they find it hard to understand themselves. So, they kiss you goodnight. Mommy sings the song she always sings. You close your eyes. But falling asleep takes time. It’s six months before you finally sleep throughout the night.

Six months is a long way off.

It’s only two days later that you hear your mother crying. Again. She’s in the front room. Daddy is too. You’re supposed to be sleeping. What’s the matter, you hear him ask her. A young man was killed in Memphis by U.S. Marshalls. She doesn’t realize you’re still awake. It’s just so sad. The story flows from her lips. You hear: black boy, handcuffed, stolen car, Facebook, video, 15-20 times, and never had a chance. What she doesn’t say out loud is how close this came to being you. Her. Daddy. Your sister.

You lie in bed all night, your eyes open. If you close your eyes, you might wake later to find everyone gone. So you keep your eyes open. And when sleep tries to overtake you, you use your fingers to stretch your eyes open wide. You just lie there. Staring at the ceiling. Not really caring what you’re seeing. Even once the house gets quiet, it’s still loud. The scene that continues to play in your mind. A memory you cannot shake.

Maybe one day when you’re older, you will leave the city. Go to another part of the country. Or maybe you’ll just stay. In the end, what difference does it make?

What we all learn, eventually, is that there’s no escape. As long as we’re black and breathing, someone will always be out to kill us.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind