Sandra Bland’s death causes questions
Mourners Gather to Celebrate Sandra Bland, Her Life Does Matter
Mourners for Sandra Bland will gather at alma mater Sunday evening to celebrate “the life and legacy” of a woman who regularly spoke out on racism and police brutality before her death in a Texas jail cell last week. The idea is to make certain that Sandra Bland is remembered. Yes “Black lives matter.”
As far as Texas law enforcement officials are concerned, 28-year-old Sandra Bland died in a jail cell Monday after hanging herself with a plastic bag.
But her family says the idea that Bland would kill herself is “unfathomable,” prompting questions about the circumstances of her death. There are too many questions that need to be addressed. There’s the conversation she had with a friend while awaiting bail. There’s the question of possible brain injury caused by the slamming of her head to the ground by the police and question of exactly why was she arrested and not just given a ticket and sent other way.
Authorities have recored that she was arrested for assault on a police officer. What was the assault? And exactly how and when did that occur?
To those who believe her death is suspicious, Bland is the latest victim of racial bias and police brutality. To drive home the point, social media users are imagining themselves in her place and sharing directives for what to do “if I die in police custody.”
Police say they found the Ms. Bland dead Monday after she hanged herself with a plastic bag inside the Waller County Jail, where she was incarcerated after allegedly assaulting an officer during a July 10 traffic stop.
Interestingly, there is no footage of her assaulting the officer but there is footage capturing the officer assaulting her and her response. She printed out to him that he slammed her head to the ground and that she can’t hear as as result. There is no empathy or compassion expressed verbally or shown by the officers. Only the instruction from the officer to the bystanders to leave the scene and run along.
She was found “in her cell not breathing from what appears to be self-inflicted asphyxiation,” a sheriff’s office statement said. Bland received CPR, and an ambulance was called, but she was pronounced dead a short time later.
Bland lived 1,000 miles away from in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois, but was in Texas because she was taking a job as a student ambassador to the alumni association at Prairie View A&M University. She graduated from the historically black school in 2009.
Our beloved Sista Sandra Bland failed the tone test when stopped by the Texas Ranger. Based on one's tone of voice when stopped by the police, one can be killed, arrested or released. The Oakland CA police denied the tone test some years ago, even after one of their officers (a former student of mine at Mills College, 1972) revealed it was in use by the OPD. But we know the tone test is a fact as we see with the pig slamming Sister Bland to the ground. Did her mental state qualify her to be treated like a dog, especially for failure to signal a lane change. Why would she want to commit suicide when she was about to begin a new job? Wouldn't she be happy, joyful? Sadly, Dr. Nathan Hare tells us, "...In the bottomless caverns of addiction in any form, there seems no amount of religiosity, coke, crack, alcohol or sex sufficient to sedate the social angst and shattered cultural strivings." Thus, it seems, white supremacy is so pathological and pervasive it will take ineluctable energy to find happiness in this wretched land, soaked in the blood of Indigenous Nations and North American Africans. Would that job have been sufficient to satisfy Sandra's social angst and shattered cultural strivings? Yes, her Black Life Matters because we must learn from her experience that we live under the shadow of death in this land. When the white devil doesn't take us out, we take out each other, thus becoming white devils in black face. So not only must we be conscious of the Tone Test with the pigs but with each other, another brother and/or sister. We can escalate or de-escalate a conversation. It is up to us, just know our life may be at stake, if we fail the Tone Test!
--Marvin X