remembering more than 700 Black Americans killed by police in 2019 & 2020

the story

In 2020 I, like many white Americans, had to reckon with my relationship to race, and my complicity in racism. As I began to pay better attention, a fact came to loom large in my mind: even when we paid attention to police violence against Black people, we did not focus on their humanity. We did not reckon with what was lost when we talked about the loss of Black life. Or we did so only when it was deemed exceptional. I wanted to do something to bring attention back to Black lives — all of the Black lives — even the everyday, unexceptional ones just like yours and mine. I wanted to begin to feel and reckon with what we have lost.

So over the course of about seven months I spent every Sunday working my way alphabetically through the list of Black Americans killed that year, and the previous year, during encounters with police. The list got longer every week. I never caught up. I researched the circumstances of each death, and then I researched each person’s life. I wrote each person’s name and something about them. Something or someone they loved. Something they did. When I was unable to find any information about the person’s life, I chose to write simply that they deserved better. They all deserved better. From the police. From our country. From me. I chose to list the ages of the children, because it’s too easy for me (and maybe for you) to assume that the police never kill children. I chose to write by hand so that it would take time, and to give each person a moment of reverence and respect as I formed each letter of their name, and remembered them.

A typewritten version of this list is available here. Find the handwritten names below, or on my Instagram (linked in the header).