Mohamed Yusuf Adan

Ekstern Skribent

I watched your last video. I watched you painfully beg to breath. I watched you beg for something every human being takes for granted, the right to breath. I watched the uniformed man of law painfully choke you to death, his ears deaf to your last cry for the right to live, his face expressionless and a hand in his pocket. I keep asking what would have happened if a 17 year old brave girl did not document your murder.

Would you have been part of the statistics of black men killed by policemen, your murder described as the death of a criminal resisting arrest? I am ashamed to admit that there are times that I have seen our black skin color as a burden, a weight too heavy to carry around, a weight that attracts unwanted attention.  Why can’t we fly like birds,  free, without strings attached, without constraints, without watching our steps, our surrounding, walking carefully as if afraid to break the glass around us?

It is very difficult to change deep rooted believes, that come out naturally, without any rational thoughts, mechanically, because they are part of you and you never feel any wrong has been done.

Without anyone getting an opinion of us that we do not share. Why must we prove that we are not about to commit crime? Does anyone know the pain of trying to convince any new person you meet that you are a normal human being, with feelings, trustworthy and with knowledge? The effort and energy used to do this year after year? The talk you have to take with your children. It is impossible to explain this to someone who has never and will never experience this. That is why there has been no need to explain, because who would believe you, we are all kind people who believe in equality, aren’t we?

The reality is that humans can be cruel, inhuman even to children! Every one of us must act. As many have said, silence is compliance. A basic human principle is that all humans are equal, irrespective of color. The only thing that differentiates us is the society that shapes us, that makes us what we are. I hope that your sacrifice makes a difference. I hope that no human will ever die as you died because of their skin color. I hope that no child, no mother will ever hear the cry for a basic human right, the right to freely breath, the right to live, brutally denied.

It is very difficult to change deep rooted beliefs, that come out naturally, without any rational thoughts, mechanically, because they are part of you and you never feel any wrong has been done. But change is possible when we watch something that revolts all of us, that we all describe as deeply unfair, brutal and inhuman.  We can no longer keep silent. We can no longer look the other way. We owe it to to the victims and their loved ones. But above all, we owe it to humanity!