1994 Part Deux- SAY HIS NAME!

A few years ago there was a hashtag created #sayhisname or #sayhername. It was created in response to the police killings of Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling and a long, long list of other people who should still be alive but aren't. I'm not here to write about these killings or these human beings. What I am going to write is story of a bad thing that happened long before twitter, or facebook, when a # was still called a pound sign and you could still push that pound sign in a conveniently located phone booth.

The year was 1994, and his name was Edward Mallet. Edward Mallet was only 25 years old in 1994, not even a decade older than me, and much younger than I am today. He wasn't a famous actor or musician, but I will never forget his name.

On a hot late summer day in 1994 that I don't particularly remember, but will call hot because it was in Phoenix, Edward Mallet died. He didn't just die, but he was killed by the police, in what was later awkwardly labeled an accidental death that was the fault of the Phoenix police department. A death that would become the precipitating incident for the largest municipal lawsuit settlement in Phoenix's history.

I don't remember Edward Mallet's name because of the lawsuit, but because of the visual image that his death left in my young brain. I can still see this vision, a vision that can stop me in my tracks and bring tears right to the edge of my eyelids.

Edward Mallet was a double amputee, who like my 2nd grade teacher, had 2 prosthetic legs. On this August day in 1994 Edward Mallet couldn't breathe, and he never did again. During an altercation with police, they put him in a choke hold, lifting him out of his prosthetic legs and choking him until he died.

It was that image that I can't get out of head. That image of a man standing on legs, being literally lifted off of his own legs and gasping for his last breath. I remember Edward Mallet, because his last breath was the first time that I became aware of police officers killing an unarmed black man. It happened that hot August day, in my city, not from far from where I lived.

Over the years Edward Mallet's story has played out so many times that we become numb to it. I don't remember the names of everyone who has been a part of the #sayhis/hername movement, but I will always remember Edward Mallet.

I promised myself years ago that I would never forget his name. That no matter how many times this sad and pitiful story is played out, I will never forget the first time I heard it. Each new Eric Garner or George Floyd that enters the news cycle, always brings me back to thinking about Edward Mallet, and it always should.

Edward Mallet would not have died if he were white. He died because he was part of the same story that we have been told over and over again until it becomes the air we breathe.

We live in a time and place where not even the KKK can be counted on to admit to being racist. A time in which barbecue Becky's call the police on black people for existing in spaces where they are thought not to belong.

We like to act as if racism and white supremacy are aberrations, things that we are done with, inconvenient reminders of a past that we'd rather not remember. The thing is, that I can't deny what I have seen with my eyes.

Edward Mallet was like so many others, the victim of a lie, told in unconscious racial bias, that he was inherently dangerous and that his life was worth less than mine. Edward Mallet was a black man, and as such we have all been taught this lie, that he was inherently dangerous.

People don't like to think about their biases, their shadow selves, the small moments when the evil thoughts that don't align with the way that we see ourselves creep into our minds. Yet it is these small moments, cracks in our wall, that crawl through when we are stressed, cracks that are caused by the same tired story that we've been told over and over again, until these cracks become the air we breathe.

I don't believe in the inherent goodness or evil of humanity. We are good, we are evil, we are all things in between. What I do believe is this. We must push back on this story, the one that has us believing that some people are less than, that some colors are worse. We have to push back against this story in ourselves because it is so pervasive that it is always knocking, trying to get in. I have spent many years rooting this story out of my head, and though I never met him, Edward Mallet is like my guardian angel, standing watch and making sure that this tired story never again finds, in me, fertile ground in which to bury it's roots. #sayhisname

Stay tuned for 1994 part III- Things that might have actually happened in 1995