Say Her Name

We vended at The Meat Out on Sunday. It was held at the Metropolitan College of Atlanta. It was the second event we had done w/ the BVSGA. They had raw food demos and lectures running in 3 different locations while about 400 - 600 of the most beautiful, high-spirited ppl I have ever seen circulated the vendors area eating, drinking and shopping. My Wife, Ludy, and I served the ppl as we do, took pics, had builds, ate and drank greatness and gathered some coins for our next relocation (we’re moving in a week or so). Overall and rain aside, it was a lovely day.

After we picked up our seeds from my Brother-in-Law Ed and his Girlfriend Tara (who was gracious enough to babysit while we hustled) in the Avalons, we jetted on back to the Lawrenceville side of things. I felt as great as I could to still have a cold. Anxieties are still present b/c a move is looming but the event is over and shirts got sold. I sat down to process some of the pics Ludy took and tripped across a post on IG. It was an image of a radiant, brown-skinned Sister w/ natural hair, fiery eyes and a smile capable of calming the collapse of heaven or at least belittle an earthquake. It said “Say Her Name” and briefly explained how she had just been assassinated a few days prior. Nah. I can’t really be happy all that long.

I looked the story up. Read several different accounts from different perspectives. The bottom line is, there was something so frightening about Mariella Franco’s message that gunmen had to be commissioned to silence it. Perhaps it is b/c she spoke for the darker segment of Brazilian society that accounts for 2/3 of the homicide victims, or the darker women who are twice as likely to be murdered as their counterparts or b/c she spoke against the rampant police brutality that permeates favela life and conditions the impoverished w/ terror. Maybe it’s b/c she had the audacity to be born a Woman of power and virtue that the PEOPLE could feel and connect through which led them to vote her into an office -deaf to their position- so that she could roar at the lions properly. Maybe they - those cowards w/ power- were shook that if other women were electrified by her example that the threat that THAT united front would present to their political grip would be devastating. So she was killed. 

Fresh from speaking on a Woman’s Panel and not long after bringing attention to an underpublicized shooting that occurred outside of a church, Mariella Franco and Anderson Pedro Gomes (Driver) were both hit when 9 shots ripped through their car. Both died as a result of their injuries. The message lives on through the ppl whom she fought for and -hopefully- will be upheld by those she inspired to live fearlessly through their causes and convictions even at the expense of their own demise.

I did not want to write this. I had to. This is life we are talking about. Life protecting Lives and then being extinguished w/ bullets b/c some lives just don’t matter and those who are living those lives need constant reminding. From the smallest child w/ a toy gun in a park up to the most passionate, articulate Councilwoman who chooses to speak on behalf of Afro-Brazilians and victims of police brutality, some ppl just have to be gunned down…while others watch…so the message is clear. Power concedes to power and thus power will negate threats to its position to avoid conceding. Based on the math throughout history, one must conclude, that unarmed ppl are among the most threatening ppl…on Earth…to ppl…excuse me…suckers w/ guns. It is sucker culture when it is being done to “wild” animals and it is sucker culture when it is being done to humans. Shooting unarmed anything is not an expression of power. It is an abuse of science, engineering and physics as well as an intimate manifestation of a deeper insecurity being harbored by the shooter. Perhaps, they feel orphaned by nature or widowed by time and want to make anyone or anything they encounter feel the same. Maybe they are stuck in a permanent state of adolescence that won’t allow them to share the Earth (or the Universe) w/ anyone or anything else…unless it is subjugated to them. Maybe. Excuse my block vernacular…but fuck them and their guns and their lists. I did this for Mariella and those who are like her. The ones that gave it all up in front of us all so that we could see for ourselves what strength looks like and how fearful spiritual weaklings are of it.

Please, Say her name.

Mariella Franco