The Qualifications For Humanity

We lose our souls when we shout people down to apologize for atrocities

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I still remember where I was when I found out about Eric Garner’s brutal murder, It was a beautiful summer day and I was partially intoxicated at Riverside Park in Harlem. After spending much of the summer crashing on a friend’s couch, I was one reference check away from having a place to call my own. After spending my formative years in East New York Brooklyn, the idea that an apartment in Northern Manhattan could bring me joy would have surprised some who knew me when I was younger. But that apartment represented freedom and safety. For one of the first times in my life, I felt like I was about to have a say in what happened to and for me, but back to the moment.

I was about two nutcrackers in when a friend told me to “check Twitter” Apparently, some “crazy shit” had happened and he wanted me to see it. After the murder of Trayvon Martin, I became louder and more intentional with my organizing, so my friends began to look at me when “big” moments like that happened, the first thing I saw was the hashtag #Icantbreath and a video.

In that video, I watched as a member of the New York Police Department (NYPD) grabbed Garner and put him in a chokehold. Eric panicked like most people would, but that didn’t slow down the officer at all, he not only held on to his grip, he tightened it. Eric cried that he couldn’t breathe, but the cop didn’t seem to care. The bystanders started to speak up, but more cops had shown up by then and kept the crowd at bay. All of this took place while Eric’s breaths grew more shallow, his cries for help fainter. It was at this moment I realized I wasn’t breathing either. The shock of what I was seeing had frozen me in place. I silently prayed that someone would intervene, no such thing would happen. Instead, I would watch on camera as the life left Eric Garner’s eyes.

What happened next was just as disturbing, in some ways, it was much worse. After the entire world watched a State-funded execution, I Can’t Breathe became a battle cry for justice. New York had an opportunity to hold officers accountable for a clear example of excessive force, and the NYPD could have joined them in trying to right a very clear wrong. Instead, a right-wing smear campaign led by the police union began to push back hard against any police accountability. Members of the Republican party, and the far-right created a counter hashtag, #ICanBreathe, and started to argue that the chokehold didn’t kill Garner, Diabetes did. Bill De Blasio, New York mayor at the time received criticism for sharing that he tells his Black son to be careful around the police.

First I had to watch someone be killed senselessly, then I had to watch them assassinate his character. As if that wasn’t enough, people began to minimize what happened and dismiss what was a pattern of abuse/unfair treatment from police against Black/brown people. Every time someone demanded Justice for Eric Garner, they were called “Anti-Police” If you complained about police violence, someone would retort you with “black on black crime,” all conversations about reforms soon began to fade, and after almost ten years of unnecessary stalling, Garner’s murderer was allowed to leave the force with no repercussions for what he had done.

When I think about that period I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of rage helplessness and sadness. Garner is just one of many Black and Brown people murdered by the police. These killings happen every day, and after watching history repeat itself so many times, I’m afraid of what would happen if I allowed myself to be honest about my feelings. I have learned to turn those emotions off, it’s the only way I can handle the helplessness and the shame that comes from feeling like there’s nothing I can do, because the minute I speak up, there will be a thousand voices dismissing my pain with a counter.

When the terrorist group Hamas murdered over 1200 Israelis in a terrorist attack that shocked the world, I was overwhelmed with sadness. There was nothing I could do to bring back the lives lost, but there were at least spaces to mourn and honor the victims of that tragic day. I don’t know how I would feel if someone I cared for had been there. it breaks my heart to think about the pain those families go through. But I do understand death and loss.

When I was 12- years old, one of my friends was shot in the back by the police, the next day officers came to our school to lecture us about “showing respect” There was no space to mourn his death or ask for justice, according to the officer who came to our class he was just another “animal who couldn’t control himself.” in my adult years it’s important to me to hold space for pain, and see peoples humanity. The way we rallied around Israel and those families gave me hope, it didn’t matter where harm happened, or who it happened to, we were all humans at that moment trying to care for each other. In the aftermath of October 7th, there was an acceptance that what took place was a tragedy and justice was necessary. That acceptance felt comforting, maybe we were getting serious about putting an end to this cycle of harm. What the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu has done since then is not what I had in mind.

Since October 7th, 2023 Israel has killed at least 25,000 Palestinian people and caused so much damage that they are now being accused of committing genocide. As the destruction in Palestine gets worse, more people are speaking out, but the response has not been the same. Oscar-winning Director, Jonathan Glazer was misquoted, called a sellout, and accused of anti-semitism after using his acceptance speech to disavow the violence happening in Gaza. Melissa Barrera was dropped from her role In the movie Scream after calling Israel a “Colonized land,” and Tom Cruise had to come to his agent’s defense after she called Israel’s war a “Genocide.” None of these people praised the actions of Hamas, and none of them celebrated the tragic death that took place on October 7th, but they and many others have been accused of antisemitism, and been attacked for their positions.

The dismissal of people’s real and valid concerns feels all too familiar, it feels like all of the times I have spoken about unfair treatment of Black people, only to be dismissed as “Anti-Cop” or lectured about “black on black crime.” Those rebuttals did not encourage me to listen, they were aimed at silencing me and others. It’s been horrifying to watch the same tactics this country uses to erase and dismiss Black lives now be weaponized to silence the mass destruction of Palestine.

Students at Colombia University are being attacked by police officers, suspended and expelled from school, and called terrorist supporters for trying to stand up for something they believe in. Instead of criticizing the school’s outsized and violent response to student protestors, far too many people are dismissing the cries of injustice as “Support for HAMAS. A Republican lawmaker has even gone as far as demanding the President of the university be fired, and the national guard be called on the students. These demands are coming from a man whose party supports a presidential candidate with ties to white nationalist groups. While people attack college students for using their First Amendment rights, over 12,000 Palestinian children have been killed in this war, and those who mention it are being accused of “supporting Hamas.”

When people first accused me of being “anti-cop” I would try to prove them wrong, by sharing examples of when the police had played a positive role in my life. I tried to find opportunities to give the NYPD credit and was careful to be measured in my statements, no matter what I did to show I was being fair, or the number of times the police gave examples of excessive behavior, nothing changed. I was always going to be a cop hater because the people shouting me down weren’t interested in supporting the police, they’re not interested in acknowledging the real suffering because of what it would say about them.

With all that has happened, I have questions; what are we trying to accomplish here? Do we care about about our Jewish sisters and brothers, and the people of Israel, or are we trying to win an argument? Can we only show support for them by allowing the Israeli military free reign and funding to decimate Palestine? Do the people of Palestine matter at all? I wish these were rhetorical questions, but after everything that has happened, I’m not quite sure where many people stand. All I know is that a bunch of college kids are being called terrorists while Israel bombs the people of Palestine into rubble and dust. Every day our timelines are flooded with dead children, crying mothers, and updates about a climbing death count. But it doesn’t seem to matter, because of Hamas I guess.