A letter "I can’t breathe" by Jarrett Drake

I have watched white co-workers and colleagues in this profession stay complicity silent as state agents slaughter Black people in the streets. I cried when Mike got killed.When Tamir got killed. When Freddie got killed. When Sandra got killed. When Korryn got killed. I cried again when, in each case, the state held no one accountable.  I want to cry right now as I process that yet another Black person, Philando Castile, was taken by the state yet his killer walks free. Another mother buries a son, a partner buries a partner, a daughter buries a father. State assaults on Black boys and men often have a ripple effect of impacting 3x as many Black women and girls, as is the case with Philando. The silence suffocates me in the open air; at work, at conferences, orany where large number of professional archivists congregate.