We’ve been grappling with the case of #KorrynGaines for five days and it has been fascinating to watch people’s perspectives. I’m grieved that she isn’t here to tell her story while everyone tells it for her based on a couple of videos. How quickly it seems like people forget that “There but for the grace of God, go I.” And this is not to suggest that the grace of God wasn’t with Korryn but to suggest that we all may be just a moment away from encounters and decisions such as she made.
I #sayhername because I’m grieved that it came to this and grieved that she was ready to die at the hands of a system that was never working in her favor as a double minority being black and a woman. Has anyone really asked themselves why she was so ready to die?
I #sayhername because it doesn’t add up, so-called mental illness or not, shotgun or not, her life didn’t have to end that way and we know this because of people who still live to tell their stories. Lest you forget the scores of so-called mentally ill white men who shot dozens of people and are now living in jail cells and getting hit in the face.
I #sayhername because we are still battling against the powers and principalities of a system that clearly stands in opposition to black bodies, and certainly black women’s bodies. It’s interesting that people forget the history of the black woman in America whose genesis in this country was her body in captivity used for reproduction and then abused in front of her children, family, and friends. The body remembers its history and some point that body must respond in contradiction. You don’t have to work with all muscle memory.
I #sayhername because I get it. The Korryn Gaines we’ve seen broadcast all over our timelines wasn’t created in a vacuum nor was she created from exposure to asbestos, but in her mother’s womb and then raised, possibly being exposed to the hardness of life and learned to build a wall 20 feet tall and possibly abused by those in power and she got tired as some–or all if you’re honest–black women are wont to do except all of us don’t fight back.
I #sayhername because it’s important to remember that we are fighting for the value of black bodies, black people, to be regarded differently which also means law enforcement’s best option is not to kill us in order to disarm us.
I #sayhername because I am my sister’s keeper and that ain’t conditional because I wouldn’t want my sister to look at me and wage the judgement I’ve seen waged against her and decide she ain’t worth keeping, especially when I don’t know the whole story.
I #sayhername because I don’t want to have to say her name. I desire for her to live and tell her story to shut all of us up but without my saying her name, that won’t happen.
Nicole Symmonds 