Tag: blacklivesmatter
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The American Reformation
PART 1: The American Reformation Begins Not all Revolutions begin with a Declaration, and not all Reformations begin with a list of Theses. The Reformation of the Methodist church in the United States began with prayer. In 1787, ten years after Thomas Jefferson penned the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all…
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Yvette Smith Verdict: No Comment Necessary
*Photo is of a building about 15 minutes from where Yvette Smith died, off the side of the road near the Bastrop County Line. It is the first significant building drivers see welcoming them to the County. Today Judge Albert M. McCaig, a Waller County Judge visiting for one case in Bastrop County, rendered verdict in the murder…
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Yvette Smith: Why All Our Rights Are Lies
“Yvette hated guns. She never let her sons play with guns,” Yvette Smith’s mother said to me after Judge McCaig called a 20 minute break, part way through the afternoon of the second day of the defense arguments for ex-officer Daniel Willis murder trial for killing her daughter. I knew what it was like to…
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An Open Letter to Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson
Dear DA Devon Anderson, I am writing to you because I remain in possession of one of the many lives you put at risk when you and Sheriff Hickman blamed the shooting of Deputy Goforth on #BlackLivesMatter, resulting in threats being directed towards those holding vigil for Sandra Bland at the Waller County Jail. Now, today, the Houston NAACP…
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“Dear Fellow White People”: An Appeal For Sustained Discomfort
*First posted on UMCLead.com on Feb. 10, 2015. Revised and updated… still unapologetic. #BlackLivesMatter makes a lot of white people uncomfortable. The impulse of many is to soothe us. Please don’t. We need sustained discomfort. There are a lot of people in this nation who have been very uncomfortable for a very long time. Those of…
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Congresswoman to DOJ: Investigate Death of Sandra Bland
On December 22, 2015, a politician told the truth. You may not have heard about it. It did not make headlines. Truth, especially the kind that makes people uncomfortable, is not quite as appealing for the news to cover as a white man with a famously pompadour-style comb-over insulting people to the cheers of his fans.…
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The Eyes Behind Us: Final Day of Sandra Bland Grand Jury
*This is the blog you write when your writing pen and your phone are your only form of defense while walking amongst armed men and women, and you hope that somehow those tools can make the people you care about safer. In the third floor Courtroom of the Waller County Courthouse, the Grand Jury finished their discussion…
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The Whistling Sheriff: Sandra Bland Grand Jury
“It wasn’t me. It was her! It was her!,” Sheriff R. Glenn Smith joked, pointing at Officer L. Watts, a female, African American Officer on his force. It was individuals like Officer Watts that Sheriff Smith had referred to repeatedly in the media when arguing that there could not have been any racial component in…
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Why You’ve Never Heard Me Say Sandra Bland Was Murdered
You’ve never heard me say that Sandra Bland was murdered. Words are precious to me. I handle them with care. I work with poets who shuffle them around like puzzle pieces on a table until they find just the right fit. I was raised by a man who took the half-page permission slips that my…
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Why We Say Her Name: Sandra Bland
As she arrived at the security check and showed her I.D., the airport agent’s eyes welled with tears at the sight of Sandra Bland’s mother; proving that even TSA is not immune to the power of her story and presence. This has become the new normal for the Bland family as Sandra’s voice strikes a…
Hannah Adair Bonner 