#JusticeforMartese: This Time, It Was Personal

You’ve probably already heard of Martese Johnson and the incident near the campus of UVA. Maybe you heard on twitter with the trending hashtag #JusticeforMartese. Or maybe we found out the same way, the video of police forcefully arresting Martese Johnson.

Unfortunately Martese’s story is not a unique one of police brutality against black men. Time aftertime in the news we have heard stories of innocent black men being shot or arrested with little to no motive for their arrest. It seems like it happens so often that we become numb to the situation. We cry over black lives for a moment because we do believe that they matter, but then we go along with our lives, because they weren’t our friends. We don’t know them and our life wasn’t affected. During the Trayvon Martin investigation the president released this profound statement. “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”

These incidents should scare us. Scare us enough so that we would get up and do something about police brutality against minorities. Reiterating what our president has said, it could have been one of us, or someone who mattered to us.

It took the pictures of Martese’s face to scare me. Because Martese was personal. He is my friend. I met Martese in the summer of 2011 at UVA during the LEAD Business program and we have been friends ever since. LEAD is a summer program for exceptional minority students. Black Lives mattered to me when

I saw my dear friend in that awful video. It took my friend being beaten up for me to become more vocal in the movement. So what is it going to take for you to get upset? Your friend? Your family member? It doesn’t matter who the victim is. It should be personal and frighten us enough to take immediate action. If we continue down this path of not caring, we are allowing this to happen to more black lives and minorities in the United States.

Jessica is a student at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee