Thinking About Sandra Bland

I’ve heard the official report that Sandra Bland committed suicide.  As I struggled in disbelief with

this report, Ntozake Shange’s  choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide/When the 

Rainbow is Enuf” crept into my consciousness.  I saw Shange’s theater piece almost 40 years ago, moved deeply by her stories of seven African-American women who tell their stories of struggle and sorrow in a racist and sexist society.  The women keep on going because they find the rainbow by finding each other, by telling each other their stories and by discovering what they have been looking for within themselves. 

                What I know of Sandra Bland, I know from the news. What I know of her struggle and sorrow in a racist and sexist society, I know from the dashcam video. What I know of racism and sexism tells me that even if she did take her own life, it was not without provocation, threat, and menace.  Isolated, silenced, and in peril, the rainbow was not enough for Sandra Bland.

Addendum:
After I posted the above blog on July 24, 2015, I added a comment on facebook and am now adding here:
My words above do not clearly express that I believe Sandra Bland was murdered even if she took her own life. The history of African-American women and men dying when in police custody and the menace of the police officer seen/heard in the dashcam video are homocidal/genocidal.