“I know what my purpose is,” Sandra Bland said, as recounted by her mother. “My purpose is to go back to Texas and stop all social injustice in the South.”
I’m sure she didn’t think she’d have to die trying.
But she did show the world how immense that calling is. It’s a horrible irony that she was excited about working at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M University, as an outreach coordinator. Now, everyone does know all about the area – where officers waste tax-payers’ money arresting people for imaginary infractions, divert public safety personnel as back-up in situations they created, require tow trucks on the scene of illegal lane changes, and so on, rather than actually fight crime.
Her turn signal infraction wasn’t even that. From the video, you see the road going from one lane to two as Sandra Bland drove through an intersection. To stay in the lane closest to the right side of the road, out of the passing lane, a driver has to move to the right, into the newly created lane, which is exactly what she did. It’s a road design issue, which causes a cautious driver to change lanes in order to stay in the slow lane.
Trooper Brian Encinia stumbled around verbally on the video about what the charge was. Just why was he arresting her? He clearly had no idea since he had no injuries and Sandra Bland had not committed a crime. Failing to use a blinker and smoking in your own car are not criminal offenses.
She repeatedly asked him why she was being arrested, and the trooper never answered. He had to make up a reason after aiming his taser at her, handcuffing her and slamming her head against the ground.
As for the race question, white people are rarely pulled over for changing lanes without signaling. However, I was and I’m white. It was one night in Seattle several years ago on a road that skirts the edge of a predominantly African-American neighborhood. I changed lanes to pass an annoyingly slow car. Of course I didn’t signal and a police car pulled me over. As the white officer came up beside the driver’s side window and peered in, an unmistakable look of shock came over his face. Apparently, he meant to get me for driving while black. He let me drive off, after advising me to be careful and reminding me not to change lanes so abruptly in the future. No ticket, no taser, no handcuffs, no smashed head, no jail cell, no death.
Sandra Bland was brave enough to narrate the injustices as they happened to her in that video, which is so hard to watch. It is our task to continue her fight for justice. Her voice is the voice of our conscience, urging us to speak out against injustice everywhere.
We know it’s what she would want us to do.