To Damo, With Our Love…

CHICAGO, IL — The news came on Friday. I wasn’t able to hear it as it broke. Later when I checked email, I read the excited comments. The United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) had released its concluding remarks. Among many references to the brutality and impunity of U.S. policing, they wrote:
“The Committee is concerned about numerous, consistent reports that police have used electrical discharge weapons against unarmed individuals who resist arrest or fail to comply immediately with commands, suspects fleeing minor crime scenes or even minors. Moreover, the Committee is appalled at the number of reported deaths after the use of electrical discharge weapons, including the recent cases of Israel “Reefa” Hernández Llach in Miami Beach, Florida, and Dominique Franklin Jr. in Sauk Village, Illinois.”
So much of what we do in the name of the dead is really for us, the living. It’s so we can try to make sense of the senseless. It’s so we can carry on and move through our grief. It’s so we don’t follow the dead into their graves. In May, when I wrote about your killing by the Chicago Police Department, I didn’t know how your friends (how our community) would come together to ensure that your death wouldn’t be another routine occurrence.
We Charge Genocide (WCG) was born from the tragedy of your killing. Through WCG, many of us have re-membered to hope. WCG member Sarah Macaraeg captured the essence of the UN delegation’s trip earlier:
“By the time the delegates left, they had staged both a walk out and a silent protest inside the United Nations when ‘US representatives responded to . . . questions regarding police use of tasers by claiming police are properly trained to use them and that they aren’t lethal,’” according to a group statement.
The story of Dominique Franklin Jr., has now been covered around the world, affirming the belief that his life mattered, as all young Black lives matter. Questions of police impunity, militarization, excessive force, and patterns of discrimination are now among the forefront of those posed by U.N. members to the U.S.”
Your friends made sure your name was entered into the record when they charged genocide for your killing and those of other Black people in Chicago.
On Friday, the UN guaranteed that your tragically unnecessary death, will serve as a platform for future organizing and change. All of us involved in this effort are committed to continue the work of creating a more just world in your name and those of the others lost to us through state violence.
Your friend Malcolm, who was/is gutted by your killing, was among the delegation that traveled to the UN in Geneva. They took the task incredibly seriously. You would be proud.
We struggle out of profound love. It’s a love that sustains and strengthens us. It’s a love that convinces us that we will eventually win. I close with Malcolm’s words about you, Damo, because they are so eloquent. Malcolm urges that “no matter what life you lived, you deserved to live it!” We carry on. Rest in power, young man, rest in peace.
Mariame Kaba is a Chicago-based, New York City-born organizer and educator. This piece was excerpted with permission from her blog, Prison Culture: http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/.