{"id":38976,"date":"2014-12-18T21:29:03","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T21:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=38976"},"modified":"2017-02-19T21:48:54","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T21:48:54","slug":"im-black-british-and-just-moved-to-new-york-after-the-eric-garner-decision-i-cant-breathe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=38976","title":{"rendered":"I’m black, British and just moved to New York. After the Eric Garner decision, I can’t breathe"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m black, British and just moved to New York. After the Eric Garner decision, I can’t breathe<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\nLondon, United Kingdom
\n2014-12-06<\/p>\n

Lanre Bakare<\/strong><\/a>, Commissioning Editor
\nGuardian US, New York, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

Before I moved to the US, I knew their names: Rodney King<\/a>. Michael Stewart<\/a>. Trayvon Martin<\/a>. Vonderrit Myers Jr<\/a>. Kajieme Powell<\/a>. I committed them to memory like Stephen Lawrence<\/a> and Anthony Walker<\/a> \u2013 young black men killed or violently beaten by police or vigilantes, black people killed in a system designed to hold them back, keep them down and then brazenly deny that was ever the intention.<\/p>\n

Watching the aftermath of those deaths from the distance of the UK was one thing: as a black British man I identified with it, yet I never felt it. But being in America, it\u2019s more infuriating, more frightening \u2013 and more personal, because now I walk these streets. It\u2019s a reality. Not just something that happens in a country thousands of miles away. I have begun to understand what James Baldwin<\/a> meant when he wrote: \u201cTo be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, when a grand jury here in New York failed to find a reason to even send to trial a white police officer who choked the life out of a black man<\/a>, I finally got it. As I sat on the subway to my new home in Brooklyn, the image of Eric Garner stumbling after six cops dragged him to the ground \u2013 the sound of him wheezing \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d \u2013 would not leave me. I got home and watched his widow and his mother talk about the lack of humanity in the man who killed him. I thought about Spike Lee\u2019s Do The Right Thing<\/em><\/a>, about Radio Raheem and how it was disgusting that a movie based on another killing \u2013 one that took place more than more than 20 years ago \u2013 could play out, almost frame for frame<\/a>, in 2014…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m black, British and just moved to New York. After the Eric Garner decision, I can’t breathe The Guardian London, United Kingdom 2014-12-06 Lanre Bakare, Commissioning Editor Guardian US, New York, New York Before I moved to the US, I knew their names: Rodney King. Michael Stewart. Trayvon Martin. Vonderrit Myers Jr. Kajieme Powell. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1467,8,20],"tags":[18568,13090,2103],"class_list":["post-38976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-law","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-eric-garner","tag-lanre-bakare","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51650,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38976\/revisions\/51650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}