by Billy Dee

Today was a bad day. It didn’t start off that way. It started with a circle of high school students who were funny, passionate, and eager to learn about my organization’s work. By 3 p.m., I was sitting in a courtroom listening to a judge hand down a 5 year prison sentence to a young man who I know. I have to admit that I just felt numb. Over the course of a day, I witnessed the promise and the pitfalls of youth.

I can’t write about the case of the young man who was sentenced today. I don’t have his permission and I just don’t want to. This is a post instead about the struggle to hold on to a sense of outrage and indignation in the face of routine injustice. I want those of you who are reading these words today to know that I am really emotionally spent. So I don’t know if what I am writing now will be true for me tomorrow. But that is OK. It is true for me today and that is good enough.

I hate going to court. I really do. I am always uncomfortable there. The judge at the front of the room, the family members and other assorted observers in the back…. The adversarial system in full bloom. Listening to the prosecutors, always so certain that they have the “truth” on their side. Why are prosecutors always so smug sounding?

By Josh MacPhee

Today again, I sat there silently. I was holding this young man’s little sister’s hand. Her hands were freezing. Fear can do that to you. We just stared ahead. The judge issued his decree. His sister bowed her head. She was crying. I was not. My eyes were dry. I realized that I was squeezing this young woman’s hand too tightly. She said nothing. I let up on my grip. What was going through my head? I am not sure. Maybe I was thinking that I would be back here again next Wednesday.

I have nothing helpful to say to the young man’s sister. I hug her. I tell her that we will appeal. I have no idea if the young man even wants to appeal. Why am I saying that we will appeal? What the hell am I saying? The words don’t match my feelings. I am just numb.

I come straight home. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I sit silently and the minutes pass. I look up and an hour has passed. What am I thinking? I don’t know. I need to eat something. I haven’t eaten anything. I have to respond to e-mails. There are too many to count today. I had turned off my phone. It is still off. I decide to keep it off for tonight. I need a break.

I turn on my computer. I get on this blog and I am typing. Not sure any of this is making much sense. I don’t really care. Something keeps getting repeated in my brain. It’s on a constant loop. “Somebody Better Say Something.” “Somebody Better Say Something.” Why am I thinking about the spoken word piece by Mama Brenda right now. “Somebody Better Say Something.” This is repeated over and over again in my mind.

SOME BODY BETTER SAY SOMETHING about the fact that our young are being fed to the lions every second, every minute, every hour, every day.

SOME BODY BETTER SAY SOMETHING about the numbness that threatens to consume so many of us who can’t seem to absorb the magnitude of the systemic violence that is being perpetrated against certain people in this country.

SOME BODY BETTER SAY SOMETHING about the unbearable awfulness and inhumanity of committing people to little concrete boxes where they are expected to remain out of sight and out of mind.

SOME BODY BETTER SAY SOMETHING. Unfortunately, today, that somebody can’t be me.