My wife and I went to the YMCA tonight; her to take a yoga class, me to play basketball. After the Y we went to Giant Eagle, and sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes to create a grocery list. While doing this, I checked my phone for emails, texts, and Facebook/Twitter notifications. A link shared on my Facebook feed took me to Gawker. And there I watched several minutes of the recently released dashcam footage of Sandra Bland's arrest.
And then I started crying.
My wife didn't notice it. She was still going over the list on her phone. Plus, I wasn't bawling. My eyes had just begun to water. Not wanting her to see them, I spent a minute or so just staring out my window, trying to will them dry. It didn't work.
She finally noticed something was wrong.
"Babe, is everything ok?"
"They killed her. They fucking killed her."
I'm sure the anger will come. And then the outrage. And then my mind will be clearer. And then I'll be able to write something better. Something (hopefully) powerful and poetic and poignant about police brutality. About Sandra Bland.
But right now, at this moment, I just feel a sadness. An all-encompassing, panoramic, sadness that plateaus momentarily and then crescendos every time I write Sandra Bland or see Sandra Bland's name. I am devastated by this. And that devastation escalates when seeing my wife and the child she's carrying and realizing how easily — how effortlessly — Sandra Bland could have been her. Screamed on, threatened, and forced out of her car like a fucking dog. And suffocated, alone, in a fucking jail cell. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck this fucking shit, man. Fuck.
I have nothing else to say tonight. I am hopeful and confident that I will have more to say about this eventually. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. Good night.