Luke Nephew, Waging Nonviolence Guest
Waking Times
Blood is dripping down our faces onto the stainless steel of the armored police van. The hot yellow light flickers against the angry eyes of six young black men. We are trembling in pain and rage. Our chests are heaving. We are still breathing. One man’s eyes stare into mine.
“They didn’t have to do that,” he says. He is shaking. “How they hit me in the face when I’m already cuffed? Kicked me too.”
We all chime in, recounting the details of how we were just brutalized.
“They kicked my ribs.”
“They straight smacked my face.”
“They scraped my skin across the asphalt.”
We had just been arrested by the police on the streets of North County St. Louis for peacefully protesting the murder...
