Tyre Nichols Called For His Mother
The deadly consequences of the single story
Thank you for reading Matriarchy Report. To support our work, become a paid subscriber, starting at $5, using the link below.
I did not watch the video footage of Tyre Nichols being brutally beaten, and I’ve been reading reports and talking to friends who decided they don’t need to see the footage, either.
Alicia Ramirez, who writes a weekly newsletter for URL Media, a network of Black and brown run media companies, said “this past week was the first time in my memory that a lot of the national conversation focused on the humanity of a person killed by police.”
Humanizing Mr. Nichols, who called “Mom, Mom, Mom” when he was just 100 yards from the home where he shared with her, is the work of our time. The host of a local public radio show reflected on the way many news reports first described Mr. Nichols, as simply a “Black motorist.”
“He was a 29-year old man. A native Californian who called Memphis home. An essential worker. How about calling him that? A driver for FedEx. Did you know that was his job? The kind of job where he would have to go out early in the pandemic for the sake of people with more privilege, who got to stay home. And, of course, the father of a four-year-old.”
Seeing Mr. Nichols, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others as more than simply victims of violence, can slowly chip away at the power of those systems that perpetuate violence.
This beautiful video of Mr. Nichols skateboarding made me cry, and made me think of all the skater kids I grew up with. It made him that much more human to me.
The call to humanize Mr. Nichols reminds me of what the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has called for when she speaks out about the “danger of a single story.”
In a 2014 TED Talk, Adichie recalls the way her American roommate, when Adichie started at university in the U.S., asked if she could listen to Adichie’s "tribal music," and was disappointed when Adichie played her cassette tapes of Mariah Carey. Her roommate wondered if Adichie knew how to use a stove, and thought that Africa was a “country” populated by beautiful landscapes and wild animals, and people embroiled in constant war and famine.
Adichie says that her roommate had a single story about her: a story of catastrophe.
“In this single story,” she says, “There was no possibility of Africans being similar to her, in any way. No possibility of feelings more complex than pity. No possibility of a connection as human equals.”
The single story, Adichie says, robs people of their dignity.
“It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult,” she said. “It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.”
Single stories were on my mind as February approached, and with it, Black History Month, and Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, and the opportunity to refocus my attention on the lives — not just the deaths — of Black people.
I have heard people say the month is “performative” – that it invokes the idea of focusing on Black people, without inspiring any real action to transform the systems that impact Black lives.
And that’s true, in part: We must focus on the clear and known solutions to the systemic violence that Black Americans endure.
Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP, pointed to several of these in that same radio interview: She called for a full investigation of every actor in every system that led to this incident.
“There are so many questions that swirl, that make me wonder, about the inability for so many actors in the chain of events to see the humanity of Black people,” she said. “To see the urgency of the complaints and concerns that might have been lodged.”
“When we know that our policing system has anti-Black, racist origins, what have we done to purge it of that taint? What have we done to replace the original system with something new that recognizes the dignity and value of Black life?” she asked.
“We’ve done nothing to do that. We have just allowed this system to evolve.”
The origins of police systems center on the myth of Black criminality, Nelson said.
“So it’s no wonder that anyone trained in that system would perpetuate that same prejudice, and bias, and hatred.”
In the interview, Ms. Nelson proposed one simple, but systemic, solution: There is no need for an officer to be armed when conducting traffic stops. Black people are almost six times as likely to be pulled over in a traffic stop, she said, increasing the likelihood of a police encounter that “could lead to a violation of civil rights.”
And while some cities have enacted this policy, and it hasn’t been rigorously enforced (Ms. Nelson called out Pittsburgh for violating the ordinance), “this one step is an important one toward evolving us to a new system of public safety,” she said.
Just as Black History Month reminds me to focus on systemic solutions — not using a well-funded police force to step in for under-funded social service providers, for example — it also reminds me of the stories I know and share: the ones I tell myself, and those I share with my family.
Jasmine Bradshaw is an anti-racist educator who created a podcast, First Name Basis, for parents who want more tools to talk to their kids about race, religion and inclusion.
Lane interviewed Bradshaw almost exactly a year ago, and her conversation with Jasmine remains our most-read post (so go check it out!).
This month, Bradshaw released a series of episodes called “Bite-Sized Black History”: featuring the stories of Black people whose names we know, and those we don’t. (The episode I just listened to was about Jerry Lawson, who invented the video cartridge, which transformed the video game industry).
Teaching our children to be anti-racist has to start inside our homes, Bradshaw insists.
“We are celebrating Black joy, we are celebrating black brilliance, and we are doing it all in twelve minutes or less.”
Jamil Smith, writing in the Los Angeles Times, asked:
When we see or hear Floyd, Nichols or the countless others cry out for their mama, whom do you hear? Do you hear someone’s son? Do you hear your own child?
Too many Americans can’t or refuse to see our experiences as part of theirs. In their minds, their kid, their spouse or their colleague doesn’t have to consider a police encounter to be a life-threatening event.
They won’t be shot without warning like Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor or Philando Castile. They think they and their loved ones have no reason to fear being asphyxiated like George Floyd, or beaten to a pulp like Rodney King or Tyre Nichols.
Perhaps they’re right, but do you see the problem here?
Of course there are many, many resources for parents to learn to be – and teach their kids to be – more anti-racist.
As a White parent, the key for me is to be vigilant every day, and keep focusing on telling full stories, and not just single stories.
I loved this report, and the important reminder to see others in their multi-faceted humanity, not limited to narrow stories. Thank you.
"There's no reason for an officer to carry a gun doing routine traffic stops."
Yes! Why do we have so many officers on the streets armed to the teeth? It's so dangerous and terrifying.