It is extremely early in the morning. It is dark. You are alone, and you have just been in a car accident. You are confused and cannot find anyone around to offer assistance, so you walk a mile in the direction of a residential area to ask for help. You are hoping someone will be kind enough to call 911 for you, maybe even let you sit in their house while help comes. You arrive at a house. It looks friendly enough. You knock on the door and the next thing you know there is an impenetrable darkness. All you wanted was help.*
The story of Renisha McBride is a sad one with no definitive answers. Initial reports stated that her body was dumped, and she was murdered, but eventually as interest in the story grew, it became known that she in fact was killed while attempting to ask for help.
These stories of black people asking for help and being killed should come as a surprise, but the unfortunate problem is these occurrences are far more normal than one would think. Just two months ago a young man named Jonathan Ferrell was killed under similar circumstances except this time he was killed by the very people who were meant to help him, the police. Some may say these killings have nothing to do with race and that the George Zimmerman case settled these issues, but I beg to differ.
How long can we continue to ignore the senseless killing of people of color, trans-people and people from religious minorities? The names of these people are piling in a litany of the forgotten, whose souls cry for us to take heed and stop this violence. I, for one, refuse to forget. Her name was Islan Nettles. His name was Jonathan Ferrell. His name was Trayvon Martin. Her name was Paramjit Kaur. Her name was Renisha McBride.
*This portion is in no way meant to reflect the exact events of what happened to Renisha McBride. It is meant as an anecdote only.
Hope Owens-Wilson is senior African-American studies major from Jackson.
-Hope Owens-Wilson
howensw@go.olemiss.edu
