I sit here typing this post through blurred vision from the tears falling down my face. Ever since #SandyBland was found dead in her cell three days after a traffic stop led to her arrest, the media has tried to paint her as the aggressor of the situation that resulted in her death- as they always do anytime a black man or woman is killed in incidences involving the police. This time was no different. The officer pulled Sandy over for failure to signal...okay, I get that. Initially, he was going to let her go with a warning, until she exercised her First Amendment right to free speech, verbally challenging not only the officer's authority, but his manhood & even bigger ego.
In the video, Sandy was clearly agitated at having been pulled over. She's mouthing off about being stopped, which is still not a crime. The officer- seeing that she is already upset- decided to use the fact that he had authority over the situation and decided to toy with her a little. His line of questioning about why she seems agitated and asking if she was okay, had nothing to do with the reason why he pulled her over, and this strong-minded woman let him know that. The turning point, and the moment that went from the officer being amused by her snappy comments to becoming angered by the fact that this woman dared talk back to him, came when he told her to put the cigarette out. And her refusal to do so set everything off. He tells her to get out of the car. Her saying no resulted in him opening the door and dragging her out of her car, completely violating her rights. You can hear her challenging his authority in the video below:
For all of you conservative bigots on social media who wanna say, "She should have just followed orders," I have one thing to say: FUCK YOU! I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears many white folks not only talk back to police, but blatantly tell them they know their rights, and refuse certain orders, so miss me with that. She had the same rights you have, and even though she was talking back, she did nothing to warrant the way she was treated by him. I've been pulled over a few times before, and while I find most officers rude and arrogant, I know the best way to avoid trouble and a possible ticket, is to just keep my mouth shut, which is what he expected Sandy to do...only she didn't.
She did nothing wrong that day. She stood up to a bully- a man who was stronger than she was, had a weapon, and authority over her. And like most bullies, he couldn't handle the fact that the person he was attempting to exercise control over- both mentally & physically- refused to go down without a fight. He wanted to get a negative reaction from her, which is why he kept trying to bait her by commenting on the fact that she was obviously agitated. To show her he was the boss, he demanded that she put out her cigarette, again, wanting a reaction from her and when she gave him the reaction he wanted, he seized the moment to open her door, pull her out of the car and onto the ground. And still, Sandy kept fighting back- with her words. She couldn't overpower him physically, but she gave him a verbal ass whipping...again, something he couldn't handle, and obviously wasn't used to. She can be heard saying, "Oh, you feel real good about yourself, don't you?" which bruised his fragile ego. She knew he was wrongfully restraining her, which is why she kept thanking the person recording the confrontation...they both knew that she could and would sue his ass in court, and win. It's that realization that led to the officer telling the person recording the video to leave. He's on a public highway, not doing anything, yet he's being ordered to walk away. He didn't want his crime being recorded. Thankfully, it was. From experience, I know that any time a woman stands up to a man who's attempting to control and overpower her, and verbally attacks his manhood, she'd better be ready to fight for her life. That's what Sandy did...unfortunately, she lost that fight.
We will never know how she ended up dead in her cell. The police will have you believe that she was high at the time of her autopsy, and that she somehow managed to get a plastic trash bag in her cell and hang herself, but that excuses is faker than a two dollar bill. In the days since her death, I've watched the video series she posted on her Facebook page called #SandySpeaks, where she was an advocate for #BlackLivesMatter. I got chills when I watched a video she posted back in April, in which she is in tears as she praised God repeatedly for sparing her life after she'd been involved in a car accident and walked away unharmed...only to turn around and be found dead in her cell a few weeks ago after being dragged from her vehicle. The movie, Final Destination immediately came to mind as I realized she avoided death a few short months ago, but it came back for her, and this time succeeded in taking her life.
Watch the video below:
The woman in the video above- who keeps saying over and over "God is good" for sparing her life- is not a woman who wanted to die. She was strong and passionate in her truth and beliefs, and even though the cops who killed her, and the media want us to believe that she was suicidal in the days and weeks prior to this, nobody will ever make me believe this woman killed herself, especially not after watching this video.The woman looking into that camera on her video series, saying exactly how she felt about the genocide of black people, was not suicidal or depressed. I've been suicidal and depressed. It's a horrible feeling thinking death is your only option. And I've felt that way more than once in my almost 37 years of life. Everybody has had moments in life where things weren't going well, and we felt overwhelmed by life in general. Sandra may have had moments in her life where she thought of taking the easy way out, but again, from personal experience, I know that better and brighter days are ahead. I look back on those times where I thought of just giving up, and I'm so glad I didn't, because I'm happier now than I've ever been in my entire life.
So again, Sandra Bland did not kill herself. Regardless of what past problems she had, she had too much to live for, and she realized that. Her family says she was due to start a new job. She had a life and a purpose, but her life was taken before she could see what lay ahead of her. The woman in the initial traffic stop video was a fighter. If she was going to fold and be the weak female the officer expected her to be, she would have never responded with a snappy comment when he told her she seemed irritated, which was his way of being an asshole, just because he could. Below is the final video that she posted. Watch, share, and discuss it with as many people as possible. They can't keep doing this to us, y'all. Because our justice system is a joke and has failed black people too many times to count in the past, I have no faith in that system that we will ever know what really happened to her in her cell. We'll get the version of the story they want us to believe, but any fool can see the truth.
We have to make our voices be heard, one way or another, and that's what Sandy did, until she was silenced forever.
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