SAY THEIR NAMES

SAY THEIR NAMES

By: Talya Langer

Say his name because one day he went to a diner and history was made.

Say his name because one day he went to a store and the world was never the same.

Say her name because one day she was home and the next she was in heaven. 

I wish there was a list but there would be more names than seven

There would be hundreds of men beaten, bruised, and battered like Emmit Till,

Women shot in their homes like Breonna Taylor,

And people choked until their dying breath like George Floyd. 

So say their names because they aren’t here to say their names themselves.

Say their names because with their deaths, the whole world changed.

Say their names since they cannot speak the words themselves.

Say their names because the cops that fired shot after shot 

didn't care to ask them who they were before the violence against these victims came.

Say their names because a man didn’t have enough air to beg the world to listen.

With a knee on his neck, he was suffocating, suffering, strangled, and stuck, 

living but not thriving in a system where his kind is not valued,

a victim of a tainted society.

With a knee on his neck, and his lungs fighting for every last little breath of air

he cried “I can’t breathe” as all life drained away,

Because he wanted to let the world know, 

He insisted on making a statement.

Say his name because George Floyd wanted the world to know the reality of racism, 

The severity of entrusting white supremacists with guns,

That the act of killing can’t be undone,  

That the knee of a man, meant to protect and serve, 

was planted on a black man's neck, 

pressing and compressing, crushing his crumbling airways, 

causing his throat to close. 

Say his name because he said, “I can't breathe” when he was choking, 

lungs on overdrive, and struggling to stay alive,

and that man, that evil man, 

kept pushing and pounding, putting pressure on pressure and pain on pain until the black man’s body and brain gave out. 

His heart stopped beating and his eyes went dark, his lungs stopped working, his soul fled off,

and he was gone.  

Say his name because what happened to him broke hearts and minds.

Say his name because what he went through was a form of torture resulting in death.

Say his name because he left this earth right in front of our eyes,

women crying, children screaming, horrified.

All shocked at the events that unfolded, leaving people traumatized

The horrors of humanity reared its ugly head that day.

The devil made an appearance in the body of that cop.

When the news got out it broke the world, hearts were shattered. 

It further proved a point that many tried to convey for years, that all hope was lost,

the system was failing, falling short yet again 

and he, the victim, a man with a life and a family

became another example,

another statistic, another story,

Just another number on a messed-up scale,

In a messed-up system.

Say his name because he deserves to be more than a story. 

He deserves to be alive.

Say his name so that he is not forgotten.

Say his name so that people know that he had a life before his death.

Say his name so that we don’t have to say anyone else’s name along with his.

Say his name so that the killing will stop.

Say his name because struggling to say “I can’t breathe.” 

took his last breath, and his last words left us with a lesson.

Say his name because the only weapons we hold are our unapologetic blackness 

and the stories of violence that remain untold.

Say his name because his words, “I can’t breathe,” launched a movement

and gave us as a society a reminder to…

Wake up. 

Say her name so that cops can learn to stop and think 

before putting bullets into a young girl's brain.

Say her name so that the world is reminded that we aren’t shouting and making a fuss over only a few shootings, 

because there haven’t been just one or two times of terror. 

No.

Events like Breonna Taylor's happen often. 

This was constant, it is constant,

Cops cause chaos continuously, creating an environment of never-ending fear.

Say their names because even if we as black people are just living our lives, 

a guy with a vengeance, some courage, and a motive to kill,

with privilege on his side, and ivory skin as his armor, 

can grab a gun.

With a heart filled with hate, 

he can capture, cut, kill, and destroy 

a man with skin as dark as the shadows and a heart as pure as gold. 

He could do the unmentionable, the unimaginable, and no one would care.

There would be no search parties or amber alerts. 

There would be no investigation until someone white gets hurt,

because the world is only designed to serve those with skin as white as bone. 

So say their names, and force the system to change.

Say their names so that the history books that hold his story get reopened. 

Say his name so that the pain Emmet Till’s mother felt when opening his casket 

and not recognizing her own son, due to the degrading and defiling acts done, is not for nothing. 

Say their names so that the pain of the blacks, who used to sit in the back of the bus, didn’t go unnoticed. 

Say their names so that years from now, their names still mean something. 

Say their names so that their memories will live on in our words.

The people who were scared and scarred by the system, 

shot, suffocated, and mutilated, 

who left us with a movement and motivation, 

and left their families in a world of pain,

haven’t left this world for nothing.

So say their names as we fight for their legacies.