I need a late pass; I only recently saw Get Out. Like last night. Almost a month after its release I finally managed to make it to see the movie that everybody is talking about. The hype is justified and any Black males dating white women will probably be donning ย a perennial side-eye whether they like it or not. And also, Iโm guessing that there will be a whole lot more questions asked of our fairer complexioned mates anytime the subject of going out of town for the first time together comes up on some โsorry, not sorry, trying not to die in the woods because white people want Black bodiesโ shit.
Suggested Reading
Get Out was wildly entertaining and not nearly as scary as I expected it to be. Iโm not a horror movie person at all. In fact, I ONLY went to see it because literally everybodyโs been talking about it and everybody I know who has seen it has explicitly told me that I need to do the same. Otherwise, Iโd have passed because I donโt like sleeping with my nightlight on. Not that I have one. Itโs my sonโs really. With his scary self. Kids, man. Kids.
Yeeeeeeeeep.
But while it took me a long time to see Get Out, what I have been watching is TIME: The Kalief Browder Story airing Wednesdays on SpikeTV (and BET). That, my friends, is a real horror story. Because itโs real. Because itโs scary. Because we already know how this story ends. Weโre watching footage of and listening to the words and what amounts to the descent of this manโs life into suicide. Kalief Browder is a victim of the intersection of everything that is wrong with the juvenile justice system, not only in New York City, but in America.
TIME is the horror storyย you should be watching.
For those who donโt know, TIME is a six-part documentary executive produced in party by Jay-Z about the story of Kalief Browder, a young man who spent three years on Rikerโs Island (New York Cityโs jail) awaiting a hearing and trial largely because his family couldnโt come up with the bond in time to spring him, and the horrors he faced inside at the hands of prison guards, fellow inmates, and the psychological effects it had on him. Unfortunately, but not at all unpredictably, it resulted in him taking his own life at age 22. If youโre unaware of his story, you really should read up on it. Or better yet, watch this documentary.
I hate to say that watching the story of a dead man is compelling, but the truth is, it is. Listening to him talk, and to his friends and family talk, and seeing footage of the brutal attacks, itโs easy to forget that youโre watching a child. He was 16 when he was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack. Sixteen. All of the footage is of a juvenile. Yet here we are, watching the waning years of his life as he explains why he came out a different person than he went in.
You get to hear from prison guards who TELL you of the corruption and what they did to bring in contraband and how they let shit slide or used other inmates as enforcers. Itโs three episodes in (plus a town hall) but you get to see an indepth analysis of what social scientists and justice reformers have been screaming: you watch every way that the system breaks you down and ruins you for life. Youโre watching unchecked devastation and destruction exacted largely on people who look like many of our family members.
Why do I need to watch it? I already know the story. I donโt want to see how America killed Kalief. I like my horror stories to be fake, not real. I donโt want to see that shit.
Iโve seen many versions of that statement on social media. And I get it. If youโre aware of the story, it probably infuriated you and possibly still does. I remember when the story about Kalief first broke and the way so many of us couldnโt believe that this young man spent almost 14 months in solitary confinement. Thatโs ungodly. Thatโs unreasonable. Itโs inhumane. He was a child. We were all pissed.
I remember reading that he died and I can honestly say that I wasnโt surprised. I was saddened because Iโd watched the interviews with him and prayed that the faint and distant glimmer of hope I thought I saw from his ability to tell his story would lead to, I donโt know, something not death. But alas, itโs hard to escape your mind. Even when I watch him talk, he always seems like heโs watching his back, fighting back tears, pain, sorrow, and despair. Heโs literally trying to make it one day at a time.
Itโs hard to watch, but itโs important to watch. Itโs important to see just how corrupt the system is. Knowing itโs corrupt is one thing, knowing HOW itโs corrupt is a different beast altogether. You donโt even fully understand what there is to fight for if all youโre fighting for is police reform and juvenile justice reform. Itโs important to know exactly what is going wrong and why and how and who is ultimately culpable. Itโs painful to see it. Itโs devastating and it might bring you to tears. Especially watching him speak about the injustices. Not hearing him, but watching him talk about it.
Itโs also important to watch because itโs almost impossible to view his story and not want to doโฆsomething. You may not know exactly what to do; Lord knows I donโt. But the more I watch and the more incensed I get the more Iโm concerned and worried about everybody else who comes face to face with a system that seems intent on destroying our community and those people of color who come into contact with it. Kaliefโs story could have been anybodyโs story in the same way that Trayvon Martin could have been anybody.
We need to be aware of all of our stories in order to know exactly what it is weโre fighting for. I pray that Kalief is resting peacefully. His story, a true American horror story, should hopefully help those that donโt know, donโt show, or donโt care about whatโs going on to people of color realize just how fucked up a system that they rarely have to deal with is.
That is the real audacity of hope.
Straight From
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