Detroit the Movie

I’ve just watched a prescreening of the movie Detroit. And…I’m…I’m left with all sorts of feelings. I’ve watched these historical movies of the plight of black people before and while “those slave” movies made feel a sort of sadness it was always easy to dismiss those feelings as “that was a long time ago.” But Detroit… Detroit was 50 years ago, almost exactly to the day and I felt as if I was watching the present day news. It wasn’t 1967 it was 2017. The tears came without me even realizing it. I felt angry and sick and…and… traumatized. It was a lot in to take in in 2 hours. And now hours after leaving the theater it is still on my mind.

For the past few years I have been more fearful every day. I constantly worry about my father, my brothers, my nephews. Every time I pass a police officer I get slightly tense and start rehearsing how I should act in case I get stopped. I paly scenarios in my head about if one of my male family members gets stopped. Will they survive? I don’t think all cops are bad. I don’t even think most are. My father was a highway patrolman, my brother an officer in the South. I’m a lawyer. I have nothing against the police yet I fear for not only my life but the lives of those I care about.

I think the hardest part to watch was that no justice was served. I’ve been practicing long enough to know that there is very little, if any justice in the “justice system”. I admit I knew nothing of the history behind Detroit. I wasn’t even thought about yet alone born when it happened. I never heard anyone speak of it and I definitely did not learn about it in school. So I was hopeful that justice was actually served back then. But it played out like every case today of the same nature. I have no answers. No solutions as to how to fix the system. I’d love to see change but how does that even happen? Shouldn’t it have already changed?

I feel even more disenchanted than before. But I need to snap out of it and go to bed. I have court this morning.