The Day After… by Brothers Writing to Live

Sam Middleton, 'Untitled' (1961)The Day After…by Brothers Writing to Live | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
It’s Wednesday, November 26th.
Today is the day after the day after a day a grand jury in St. Louis, MO, decided against indicting Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson, who killed 18-year old Mike Brown, Jr.
Just forty-eight hours ago, we waited anxiously believing, for once, that our legal system would prove us wrong. We thought: surely, justice would prevail this time. We were hopeful and not yet completely rage-filled and heart broken. We had yet to scream, “Fuck White racists. To hell with Black apologists demanding us to calm down--reminding us that Mike Brown's actions got him killed and not his color. We refuse to listen to any POTUS, even the Black one, who points a finger at us as and not the fucked up state systems demeaning and deadening us under their watch.”
No. We still had faith in a rigged system, despite the constant reminder that Black lives aren’t valued in empires—even those built on our backs.
We urged ourselves to believe America would not fail its Black citizenry again.
We chose to suspend history and focus on what could be as opposed to what was and still is: That Black people were deemed three-fifths of a human in our country’s founding documents; That our bodies have been subjected to slave codes, Black codes, rapes, lynchings, Jim Crow laws, the war on drugs, and the prison industrial complex; That White vigilantes like George Zimmerman walk free after murdering Black kids like Trayvon Martin and some other will use a shotgun to kill our little sister, Renisha McBride.
And while we hoped and prayed and put faith in the system, the system (and its agents) verified that Black life doesn’t mean shit in these states. In fact, the law tends to overly protect White police and White vigilantes. The law tends to serve those who brutally execute Black people because White people are considered arbiters and the embodiment of the “law.” But, two days later, highways continue to be shut down, streets continue to be blocked, once comfortable lives have been disrupted, truth has been told, fists remain raised, and a people are wide awake. We say: No more. 
No more die-ins and the donning of hoodies as performative gestures meant to indicate our refusal to be killed. No more. We support every Black person, and ally, who is resisting and protesting a system that failed to bring about justice for Mike Brown's family. 
No more hashtag memorials and silent vigils in memory of 12-year old kids shot dead for holding toy guns by a police who would sooner protect a White card carrying NRA member than any unarmed Black person. No more. No more protecting corporate media outlets who speak more kindly of White criminals than they do Black victims. No more. 
We are creative and imaginative enough to dream and build new methods of public safety in our communities because we cannot be sure that our calling the police for help might be a reason some cop, who sees us as "demons" as opposed to human beings who bleed and hurt, decides to slam us on our heads, choke us, pound us repeatedly, pull out a gun on us, shoot us. 
No more. Our Black bodies are not yours to pillage and dispose of. And forty-eight hours later we are writing to remind you that we will not forget. There can be no peace without justice. There can be no peace as long as police-vigilante-murderers are allowed to go free. 
We will not forget that our legal system continues to legitimize anti-Black, state sanctioned violence. We stand in solidarity with Mike Brown's family and other families of those Black people who have been murdered by police. We are in solidarity with the brave among us who have laid their bodies on asphalt-paved highways to shut shit down for justice. We are in solidarity with those who wake up with voices lost, should they be able to speak, after spending nights upon nights screaming chants that urge us toward transformation and revolution. 
The day after today and the day after that, and many days after, we will not forget. We are not your strange fruit. We will fight. And we will live. 
Signed, Brothers Writing To LiveKiese Laymon, Writer & Professor at Vassar CollegeMychal Denzel Smith, Writer, Mental Health Advocate, & Cultural CriticKai M. Green, Writer, Filmmaker, & Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern UniversityNyle Fort, Minister, Writer, and Community OrganizerMarlon Peterson., Writer & Youth & Community AdvocateMark Anthony Neal, Writer, Cultural Critic, & Professor at Duke UniversityHashim Pipkin, Writer, Cultural Critic, Ph.D. Candidate at Vanderbilt UniversityWade Davis, II, Writer, LGBTQ Advocate, & Former NFL PlayerDarnell L. Moore, Writer & Activist