I can’t stop thinking about Mamie Till

I can’t stop thinking about Mamie Till. 

 

If you don’t know Emmett Till, do some research. I’ll make it easy for you. Google “Jet Magazine Emmett Till Project” and you’ll find it all there, the way I remember this very familiar story.

 

For her son’s funeral, Mamie Till insisted on an open casket so the world can see "what they did to my baby.” His bloated tortured body was so unrecognizable, his mother had to identify him by a ring that he wore which was cutting into his fingers from the swollen flesh left in the water so long.

 

I’ve been thinking about the consequences of “perception becoming reality” and “there are two sides to every story.” Perception is never reality and all stories are multi-faceted, far more complex than two-dimensional. And stories are not reality either.

 

A jury decided that when a young man perceived his life was in danger, he was justified in murdering unarmed people he thought were a danger to him. His paranoia, his misconception, his bias was perceived as reality.

 

I thought, does that mean that if I perceive white people as a threat to my life – and sitting here in this moment this is exactly what I perceive – I can illegally obtain a weapon, cross state lines, and gleefully gun down white people walking in my direction or behind me? Then will I receive gestures of support from police at the scene as I strut calmly away, eventually returning to my mother’s home? And if I were arrested and charged later, could I cry about my perception and find acquittal at the end of it all?

 

But, like Mamie Till, I know. This strategy works only for white people. My ass would be grass. And my perception becomes my reality. White people want me dead and that’s a past I don’t want to live in again. 

 

Emmett Till drowned in a white woman’s tears. A white man’s tears denied Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber their justice. Gaige Grosskreutz survives to see his justice denied. I wasn’t expecting it because the victims were also white. I know better now what I should have known before. They were attempting to protect other people -- some Black people -- when they were shot, when they were murdered.

I can’t stop thinking about Mamie Till. 

 

Finally, I think I understand why she wanted the world to see. She knew the court would not give her son justice. She knew. The only justice her Emmett would ever have would come by burning his memory into the consciousness of the world. She wanted the world to know what she knew.

 

Take a good look, world. Let it burn on your consciousness. Understand why we must say out loud that Black Lives Matter because in our reality and not just in our perception, some lives seem to matter more than others. This is my reality. I insist you know it. Viscerally. The way I know it. The way Mamie Till knew it.

I can't rest because I am full of outrage and profound sorrow. 

And I can't stop thinking about Mamie Till.

"Ella's Song" by Bernice Johnson Reagon