His Name in Vain

We can choose to be sated by more cops in jail. Or we can insist that bargaining for mere survival is not enough.

- ZAK CHENEY-RICE

One year later, America is struggling to REFORM and reimagine the AGENCIES that have been licensed to KILL us.

MOST OF THEM DON’T DIE. It’s easy to mistake the worst outcome for the most urgent crisis, but the reality is that the vast majority of people who have violent encounters with the police live to tell about it.

Meralyn Kirkland has been telling about it, and what it cost her family, since September 19, 2019—when her manager pulled her aside and told her, sorry, there’s someone from your granddaughter’s school on the phone. It had been five years since she’d moved from the Bahamas into a 1,000-square-foot apartment in Orlando, Florida, and six years since Kaia Rolle, all eight gray-blue pounds of her, struggling to breathe, felt her grandmother stroke her shoulder and made her first “funny little squeak sound.” And it was eight months before George Floyd’s last breath knocked America on its back.

When Kirkland answered the phone that day, she was put on hold. “Hello,” said the man who finally picked up. “This is Officer Turner. I’m calling to tell you that Kaia’s been arrested. She’s on her way to the juvenile center.”

Kaia was an exuberant 6-year-old, the type who kept her grandparents on their toes but entertained. She struck up conversation with strangers everywhere, gave them hugs. They often joked that if Kirkland wasn’t careful, someone was going to “run away with her.” “I was trying to teach her the meaning of garrulous because that’s what she is,” says Kirkland. Kaia would turn their commutes into showcases for her singing. “She’d have the entire bus eating out of her hands.”