Sandra Bland

It legit terrifies me. Like it really scares me.

For people who don't know, Sandra Bland was a black woman who was arrested last week and was then found in her jail cell dead. Obviously, with the new numbers of a black person dying once every 8 hours (a drastic change from once every 28 hours last year), shit didn't add up.

Sources say that Bland committed suicide and are using her history of mental illness and a past suicide attempt after losing a baby in 2014 to make it more plausible that she killed herself while being in jail.

The things...the things just aren't making sense to me.

People are saying that she hanged herself with sheets, ain't no sheets in jail, so then she killed herself using a trash bag. Ain't no trash bags in a jail cell (which makes pretty clear sense cause a person can have an endless amount of opportunities to do stuff with the bag if they are creative...which a lot of people are when they're cooped up in a cell are)

Then on top of all that...Sandra is reportedly 6 feet tall.

Taller than the walls that confined her. By a whole foot, actually.

But the autopsy says it's consistent with a suicide.

I just...I don't know. I don't believe it. I don't think that's the end of the story.

And, no, I'm not "debating" with anyone on this. I'm not out here looking for a discussion, I'm out here trying to wrap my brain around it. You can save it for your response blog.

Cause this doesn't make fucking sense.

Sandra Bland was an outspoke woman who was active in the black lives matter movement and against police brutality.

And the very thing that she was an activist for, ended up [possibly] killing her.

Now the scariest shit of it all is her mug shot. Especially when it goes side by side with her previous one. Google it. There's this "meme" going around saying she was dead in her mugshot. I refuse to believe that for my own personal sanity...but that photo fucks me up. She looks...empty. Compared to her other photos where she's smiling and seems full of life, her last mugshot looks real empty. Not saying she's dead, but something wasn't right with her.

And I wonder...why?

And I will probably always have to wonder why because no one will give out the honest answer. I will always wonder about the full story of Trayvon and Micheal and Tamir and VonDeritt and Eric and now I'll always just have to wonder about Sandra, too.

Another scary thing is that since Sandra was reported to be so outspoken, it's left an uneasy taste in women who look like me mouths. It's so easy as a black woman to be labeled as "outspoken" and "angry" due to the angry black woman trope whenever we seem to be just a little too mouthy. Which is all the time to a lot of people.

Misogynoir is a massive thing that black women have to face every day. So when these things happen and the trope gets thrown around, it really just pushes black women against a wall and silence them.

Which I hate. Because I will never be silent.

When I talk, I have something meaningful to say. I'm passionate with a strong opinion and when I talk, I don't just talk for me. I talk for all the women that look like me who have died for having an opinion. For the women who are too scared to have an opinion. For the ones that agree with me, but just can't say they are. For the women who say things, but the people in the back can't hear them so I talk a little louder and help them. Have you ever been in a room with a hundred people just whispering? The more people that whisper, the louder that shit actually sounds.

I don't give a fuck how people feel about me. Cause at the end of the day, I do it for the people and can't and won't. I'm the only person I know that consistently talks about these issues. Cause I can't let this shit go when all it does is get worse. I'm not gonna hold my future daughter in my arms one day and say that in the face of adversity, I let someone silence me because I was "angry". When I hold the hands of my future granddaughter, I'm not gonna say that "I wished I said more" or "I wish I spoke up".

No. I spoke the fuck up and I stepped up to the face of my oppressors and I said exactly what was on my fucking mind for every woman that couldn't or wouldn't. That I looked them in the eye and I told them how I felt as a black woman in America and that's why she can go outside and hopefully not have to worry about getting killed for her skin. That that's the reason why her brother can go and wear a hoodie or walk into a store and not have people look at him as nothing but a target. That when she looks at me as I tell her what I had seen and what I had to go through that she'll say "Wow, mom/grandma, I couldn't imagine the world like that today"

Because, my voice, it matters. And as long as I can see it, hear it, talk about it, and write about it, I will never let that shit go.

#SAYHERNAME