As a generality I would venture to say black men never want to be martyrs. However, the almost daily public execution of black men has created martyrs of many men without their permission. The frequency at which this is happening, I am embarrassed to say, has rendered me numb to the news of another black man’s death. See at one point, a small part of me used to die when I heard that a black man met his death in a senseless manner and it somehow got blasted into my consciousness. I would spiritually, intellectually and emotionally mourn his passing as if I knew him, when in fact our only connectivity was race, gender and the news. I would chide the collective community for what I considered our collective carelessness and normalizing his death because I wanted to live, and no matter who he was or what he did I am sure that on his worst day or in his worst moment he did too.
Fast forward to now and my spirit has intersected with the Law of Self Preservation and the Law has won; which suggests that I cut off that which may harm me, and the weightiness of black men dying is a lot to bear. Now you add law enforcement to the mix of participants, and the ask becomes entirely too much. At least for me. What’s more grim and heavier relative to law enforcement is the movie-like appeal their role in the death of black men has taken on (Cops = Good Guys, Black Men = Bad Guys). The implications and permanence of good guys versus bad guys and the death of said bad guy being uploaded almost daily to my psyche has created a cycle of social confusion that I just can’t/refuse to carry around.
I would venture to say death at the hands of those who may have some real or imagined beef is one thing, but layer in those who took an oath to protect and serve and it becomes akin to the Chinese torture method of lingchi (death by a thousand cuts). Therefore, as a means of coping I chose to mentally check out and preserve ME instead of waiting and watching while I die a spiritual and emotional slow death.
This is not to say I have become or intend to become any less of a conscious objector to the spiritual, intellectual and social genocide that is playing out before me. I just had to make a choice and the frequency of those thousand cuts made me rethink my collective actions. What does that mean or what does that look like I am not sure, but what I do know is it doesn’t look like me clicking on or watching every tragic story about a black man dying. I simply don’t have room at the inn for that.
That’s my truth and I AM sticking to it…
Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen
