Annotations for Eric Garner
A/N: In Christina Sharpe’s “In the Wake: On Blackness and Being” she discusses black redaction and annotation as a form of wake work; work that tasks us with finding ways to breathe life back into the socially dead. This writing is my attempt at doing just that. It is not at all an attempt to speak for Eric as he has already and clearly done so. It is an endeavor to not only hear, but listen to what else Eric was saying. It is an offering for Eric to let him know that I heard and felt beyond what was uttered. In a world written in anti-blackness, this is how I annotate for black people whose bodies, life, and words are disregarded.
“Every time you see me you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it…” As in every time my black body is in the line of sight a problem has now been identified and historically I am a problem that must always be tended to and often times brutally. Tired because I consistently arouse suspicion when all I am guilty of is being black. Tired because ever since you kidnapped, dominated, and subjugated those who look like me, I live in the afterlife of it and its exhausting.
“This stops today.” As in there will be a conclusion to this surveillance upon my blackness. Today I will not act accordingly, I will go off script, I will be the errant note in a song, I will be off-key because I refuse to allow this to persist any longer. Today it will stop by any means, even if that means my last breath will be the finale to this spectacle you constantly make of me. Today it will stop; I am imposing a pause on this painful, endless melody.
“What are you bothering me for…I didn’t do nothing...I’m just standing here..” As in I have always bothered the non-black gaze with my blackness, with my refusal to go away. I have done nothing but merely be like the ground I stand on, like the trees that sway with stories of ropes that have adorned them. I have never needed to do anything, needed to sin, needed to transgress in order for your violence to meet me. I have done nothing and yet something will inevitably be done to me.
“I did not sell nothing. Because every time you see me, you want to stop me, you harass me…I’m minding my business, officer.” As in you have created a reason, conjured up loose, untaxed cigarettes out of thin air to justify this (another) unwanted visit. Consistently, anti-black-ness has come like a thief in the night to steal my right to exist. Always and without consent, I am subjected to its pervasiveness. I have done nothing but be black and earnestly mind my business, but you are a paid agent of the state who has been tasked to tend to me. You are a paid agent of the state tasked with accosting me while I live in the wake.
“Please just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone.” I am making no request for reparations, but for peace from your prejudice if only for a respite. They will pardon you as they always do for the murder of those just like me. I come to you with no recipe for revenge, but a demand to respect my autonomy, to leave me. Out of all the things in this moment that I could ask for, like being seen as human, being listened to, and not merely heard, I have only asked to be left alone. I have asked relentlessly and yet, it is clear as your colonial collaborators approach, it is another plea you all will not heed.
“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, please.” I am familiar with the danger of your gaze, I have mastered how to eschew or even at times allude your mind before it leads to my demise. But if you touch me, my death may be unavoidable. If you touch me, there is no guarantee I will be released and still breathing. If you touch me, my children become fatherless. If you touch me, my wife becomes a widow. If you touch me, my suffering continues to be ritual and evade remission.
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe…” Perhaps, The first time I said it, it was for me, for I must put words to my pain. Maybe the second time was so that those bearing witness, those that will report on it, will know that my suffering was real. The third possibly was in hopes that anyone, because certainly not the one who has me in a chokehold, would find their humanity and urge for my release. The fourth time is born of urgency, the fifth time the fear starts settling in, the sixth time I sense that my “this stops today” means there will not be another day. The seventh is a plea for the way that life in this anti-black world was always suffocating me. The eighth is evidence I somehow learned to exhale in a world that wishes I was neither here nor there. The ninth is because all I have known and know now is that I’ve never been able to breathe, but it still bears reiterating. The tenth is in preparation for the finale to a life destined for the grave. The eleventh is a goodbye to the socially dead life always meant for the slave.
“I have never needed to do anything, needed to sin, needed to transgress in order for your violence to meet me. I have done nothing and yet something will inevitably be done to me.” This piece gives me chills, definitely a must read. Rip to Eric Garner!
POWERFUL writing! RIP 🪦 Eric Garner 🙏🏾