Sandra Bland ... alive and well.
On Tuesday, the Prairie View City Council voted to rename the street where Sandra Bland
was originally arrested right outside of Prairie View A&M University, Sandra Bland Parkway.
I understand and even appreciate the gesture, but it's haunting for at least three reasons.
First, there is something particularly disturbing about how a majority black city council has the power to rename streets, but struggles to address the core causes of police brutality. I'm not saying that this council is derelict in its duties, I'm saying that African Americans in elected office tend not to have the actual power needed to address the systemic inequalities that caused Sandra Bland to be targeted, threatened, and wrongfully arrested in the first place. So, in place of that, she gets a street.
Secondly, as far as we know, the officer who arrested Sandra Bland has not been fired and may soon be policing this same street. While we could choose to view it as some type of strange karmic gesture that he will have to patrol a street named after her, it just doesn't sit well. I'd rather see him fired and never serve as an officer again than I would have a street named after her.
Lastly, I want to be clear that while I still honor this city council for doing what they can in this instance, we must ensure that we have people in power who can do much more than this. We need progressive prosecutors, district attorneys, police, governors, legislators, and more to be able to properly address systemic racial injustice.