This is America: Breonna Taylor should not be dead

Run. Run. Run. Inhale through your nose, and exhale through your mouth. Don’t forget to breathe.

On the 20th lap around the track, I was too exhausted to focus on any arduous thoughts, the anxiety morphed into silence and then I was free. I was running to get away from the constant horrors chasing Black Americans. 

With people no longer around, I laid out on the track in a savasana-like pose. Tears fell to my cheek, my face up to the stars. That is when I could let out a scream from deep within that only the night sky, grass, and God would hear. 

My name is Shaylah Brown, and welcome to the "This is America" newsletter centered on race, identity and the ways they shape every part of our lives. I am a dancer, painter, and local reporter at The Record in Bergen County New Jersey.

But first, race and justice must-reads

• Breonna Taylor: A beloved sister becomes a symbol of pain, an icon of hope (The Record)
• Breonna Taylor’s movement and why so many saw themselves in her story  (USA TODAY)
• Black women like Breonna Taylor die every day at the hands of police. It’s time we said their names (USA TODAY)
• Breonna Taylor has been gone a year. Why we need to talk more about the racial trauma of Black death (USA TODAY) 
• New Details About Breonna Taylor’s Life and Death (New York Times)
• Police killings and Black mental health (Penn Today) 
• Nearly 250 women have been fatally shot since 2015 (Washington Post)

Moving my body to quiet my mind

I had to run. My escape was running. My sneakers pounded into the terracotta track, inside the gates of St. John’s University in New York City's Jamaica neighborhood on Utopia Parkway. I would exhaust my thoughts and free my emotions. My journey would begin at golden hour, those few minutes of sunlight before the sunset. 

The first few laps would be surrounded by other people, who wanted to get their daily exercise in for the day, as well. By the 10th lap, people began to fade, as the sky turned deep indigo. A familiar gospel song would beam through my headphones, maybe "More Than a Conqueror" or "The Best is Yet to Come”, that was in 2015.

Breathe.

May 2020 I was running again, longing for my escape, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd all on my mind. It was not lost on me that my escape might have been Ahmaud’s escape, as well, and running was a privilege. In my backyard, I sprinted, back and forth. Inhale. Exhale. Remember to breathe.

But George Floyd said he couldn’t breathe butgeorgefloydsaidhecouldntbreathe, Eric Garner said he couldn’t breathe. Remembertobreathe.

Breonna. Breonna. Breonna.

After learning about George Floyd, I was avoiding reading about Breonna Taylor because I did not want it to be true. I felt guilty. Breonna Taylor was killed in March 2020, and May 2020 was the first time I heard about her story. I did not want it to be true, because if it was true it meant the police killed another Black woman. A Black woman who was the same age as me, a Black woman with the same name as my younger sister. But it was true, it is true, and no form of escapism can alleviate that fact.

I will never be the same person that I was before I heard about Breonna Taylor’s death. I was baptized into this unwanted reality, I felt like I somehow knew her, that I met her and laughed with her, shared my innermost thoughts.

Breonna Taylor should still be here today. She should be planning for the future she dreamt of, waking up every day to reread her goals that she wrote on sticky notes around her house. Since 2015, 48 Black women have been shot and killed by police, which does not account for deaths that were possibly unreported.

I had to understand nothing would make this understandable.

Inhale.

As a Black woman in America, you can be killed by the police in your own home. As a Black woman in America, you can attend a pool party and be tackled by a male police officer and punched in the face. As a Black woman, you can make a U-turn and be snatched out of your car by a police officer, and have your child violently taken from you and put in police custody, for no reason. If you decide to get married to a Black man, there is a possibility that on the early morning hours of your wedding day, he may be shot and killed by the police. If you do get married and decide to start a family as a Black woman there is also a high chance that you may die while giving birth and not be able to raise your children. If you live to have a family there is another chance that your beautiful son, may be shot and killed on his way back from the store, or while going on a run, or while coming in after getting a subway sandwich.

And then you are asked, “how are you?”

“I’m fine. I’m okay.”

 A line recited from memory rather than emotion.

We are not okay

A new term is brimming in psychology, Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, CPTSD. CPTSD is a reoccurring traumatic event, whereas Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is one single traumatic event. Research has shown that the constant police killings have negative impacts on the mental health of Black people, even if that Black person is not directly connected to the police killing in any way.

In December 2020, I was working on a story about Breonna Taylor. I picked up the phone and on the other side was her little sister, Ju’Niyah Palmer, it was only a few days after her 21st birthday. The cadence and smile behind her voice when she recalled memories with her beloved sister, allowed me to feel a sense of gratitude. I was grateful for Ju’Niyah’s willingness to share memories of Breonna.  She told me for a while she was extremely depressed about the situation and her family was lonely in all of it until the story came into public view. Yet, she still smiles, I find hope in that.

As Black women, we are called strong, resilient, triumphant and magical. These things are true. We are not invulnerable. Our tears are so normalized it is seen as makeup.

These days as I lace up my running shoes, I'm getting ready for therapy. I am striding toward change, demanding the exhales of a changed America, one where Black women and all people can dream and live a desired reality.

--

Shaylah Brown is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. Twitter: @shaylah_brown

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