#dream defenders
by Regina Joseph
Today I woke up and my mind rested on Jordan Davis. My body shook with anger and my blood boiled with discontent towards a prison-industrial-complex that continues to make excuses for the execution of Black and Brown youth by law enforcement and racist vigilantes.
Oh, mama don’t you see the empty field of flowers that now cover all your children’s graves?
I woke up and my tears watered the graves of the 26 children (we know there are many more), whose deaths were justified in Stand Your Ground cases.
I woke up and I realized my tears could not bring back the sense of self worth and self esteem stolen from my brothers and sisters who were pushed through a pipeline directly into an unwelcoming jail cell.
Black children make up only 20 percent of Florida youth, but 46 percent of school arrests. The principals and security guards told our brothers and sisters they were criminals when they were just good kids in mad cities. In Florida, 67 percent of these kids were arrested for minor violations and fights. We are carrying the weight of the world because our fathers cannot get jobs when Black unemployment in Florida is 16.8 percent. We are carrying the weight of the world with no food in our stomachs and with holes in our too-small shoes.
My cries would not console the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Israel Reefa and Renisha McBride.
So My Soul marched that morning side by side with Dreamers, Queer Folks and the multinational Working Class bound together in the struggle to force the hand of Merciless Lady Justice to correct the scales that weighed heavily on the side of the 12,000 children arrested that year.
We will not rest until the neglect of Black men, Brown mothers, sons is as important as the justice of white men, white mother, son.
We who believe in freedom, knew we can not rest until the justice of brothers and sisters are won.
Yet Lady Justice turned her cheek as Youth Services International lined her pockets with 183 million dollars. James Slattery, the CEO of YSI and his wife donated over 400,000 dollars to politicians to be plantation overseers of Black and Brown children.
But the power of the people will never stop. The collective will continue to fight the nightmare that is the Florida prison state.
We March because we want our children to have dreams that hoodies are not a tenant of character, loud music is not an excuse to spray bullets, and skittles are not a weapon.
Our children will awake from their dreams and ask if little bloodied girls really laid in the street when the church bomb went off in Alabama.
The children will continue and they will ask “how did we save the children?”
And we’ll respond proudly:
That we woke up many mornings ago with small Brown faces in our memories
And we decided enough was enough and children caskets would no longer be walked down in the funeral procession of dreams deferred.
We marched on Tuesday March 4th, 2014 to demand that are dreams were no longer deferred.
We demanded enough was enough , and birthdays would not be celebrated in cemetery.
We screamed enough is enough And that proms would not not spent in jails.
And when we marched, we sowed the seeds of revolution so we could water a field of flowers so strong and beautiful that it will uproot the oppressive systems that be.
The dream would longer be deferred but defended and we will achieve liberation in our lifetimes.
Dream Defenders calls for a massive action of Black and Brown peoples, allies, men, women, non-gender conforming people, citizens and non-citizens to gather at Florida Capitol where we Dream Defenders will give the real State of the State of the Address to tell Rick Scott to listen to the beckoning rumbles of the people.
This article was originally published by FSU News.
Regina Joseph is the Vice-President of the Dream Defenders FSU.
