708: Here, Again
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A quick warning. There are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. From WBE's Chicago, it's this American life, Myra Glass. It's been such an extraordinary and painful few weeks since the killing of George Floyd. And we have a show today with people in scenes that we recorded this past week, trying to capture what this moment feels like and how different people are reacting and what they're doing. And I know usually right here at the top of the show, I'd jump right in with some story, but I think it actually captures what lots of people are feeling this week a lot better to start with this essay from one of our producers, Be A Matter Wouldn't Me, who she is. The year I came to live and work in America, 962 people were shot and killed by police across the country. Or maybe the number was 1093. It depends on who you ask about 2016. One project that counted the dead found that black males aged 15 to 34 were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by law enforcement. In case you've become fuzzy on timelines, Michael Brown was shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Walter Scott was shot in the back by police in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. In 2016, Alton Sterling was killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a day later, in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, police shot and killed Philando Castile while he was in his car with his partner and her four-year-old daughter. Those last two incidents were recorded. Both were viewed by the public at large. At the time Sterling and Castile were killed in 2016, I'd been living in New York for four months. I'd come to America to report on the presidential election campaigns with a rye British eye. I no longer have the original text of my visa application, but I remember distinctly that it mentioned both the 19th century French social scientist Alexis de Tocqueville and the late British journalist, Alistair Cook. Both Alexis and Alistair were men of letters, operating in very different eras of American upheaval. The aim of their writing was to help readers back home understand the unique American situation. They were good names to put on a visa application. It indicated I knew my literary lineage, but the reality is that beyond the common ground of our jobs, I wasn't really like Alexis or Alistair. I moved through the world differently. I was a woman. I was a Muslim. I was the child of working-class immigrants, born to parents who themselves were born in an African country still under the yoke of the English monarchy. And of course, I was black. I still am. Thanks to the spread of empire, I'm no stranger to the project of colonization. Of all the things I would be reporting on and experiencing first hand in America, the subject of blackness was the thing with which I had the most literal, most lived experience. British police have historically not used guns like their American counterparts, but the history of disproportionate black death during and after interactions with police in the UK tells a familiar story.
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