The Murder of #TyreNichols: I Do Not Need to Watch Black Death & You Don’t, Either

I did not watch the video showing the murder of #TyreNichols. This expectation that Black people must subject ourselves to watching replays of Black pain and trauma does not serve us well. Our outrage can exist without forcing ourselves to read the stories about our murders, listen to pundits dissect every second, or stare at a screen where the taping of deadly beatings are replayed for all of the world to see.

We know we are still in a time where we need to “bear witness” because “no one would believe” that we did not deserve death.

That no one would acknowledge that we experienced inhumane treatment

Yet, even in our holding back tears and levels of helplessness because we know if we do more than record, we will suffer the same fate — — there is this part of us that is well aware that the footage will not be enough to some. Because they are too invested in the narrative that we were unworthy of humanity.

Or who would simply argue that we could have stopped our death

“Simply” by not resisting

Yet our resistance to systems that justify our murders and sometimes even celebrate those who caused them, are all that we have.

Failure to resist is not an option if we hope to survive in a world that suggests that “extra classes” could teach someone who is there to protect us to not decide to kill us

We have to stop subjecting ourselves to viewing Black trauma at the hands of those who have become so embedded in systems that do not value us — — regardless of the skin in which they are cloaked. Because if we believe the assertion that is yelled in our faces when we demand accountability — — that there are “lives” that “matter” when we demand that “Black Lives” should, the cloaking can come with its own dangers for us.

Those who acknowledge systemic racism, the over-surveilling of our communities, the acceptability of assault on our Black Bodies will do so without checking the evening newsreel.

Those who seek to minimize or defend our deaths will do so regardless of the photographic evidence.

At what point will we save ourselves the anger, terror, deluge of racial trauma in this ineffective sacrifice to try to bring awareness to those who do not care in the first place?

Tonight, I will think about the family of #TyreNichols.

I will hope for justice within a system where we do not always find it, knowing that if we do in this instance, it is because of the willingness to sacrifice those who look like me, when those same systems have vigorously protected those that did not.

What I will not do is watch Tyre’s death. As a community, we have not only earned the right not to do so — - we must not for our own emotional safety.

Dr. Tyffani is a licensed psychologist who centers the needs of Black Women and Girls in her work. She has committed to continuing to resist and understands that part of that resistance is not forcing herself to view Black trauma while fighting for Black justice/liberation.

#TyreNichols #VicariousRacialTrauma #SystemicRacism #BlackLivesMatter #DrTyffani