Page 35 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

Right now, my thoughts shift to Trayvon Martin, the young, unarmed black teen

killed just outside of Orlando in 2012, gunned down by a man who

positioned himself as neighborhood crime watch. The all-white female jury

declared he was not guilty. Young black men everywhere beware, I thought to

myself then. You are still being hunted. In 2015, police in the U.S killed five times

more blacks than whites. In total, 102 unarmed blacks were killed, and of those

cases only two deaths resulted in conviction of police officers. The murders

continue.

Right now, my thoughts race to my kin—the Florida black bears. In just two days

in October 2015, 295 bears were hunted and killed in Florida. The largest

number—139—were gunned down in the central Florida region, the place I call

home. The hunt was unanimously sanctioned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife

Conservation Commission (FWC). All seven of those commissioners were

appointed by Florida Governor Scott, and all have ties to the private sector,

including ranching, contracting and land development. Black bears are seen as a

possible threat to such intentions, although black bear attacks in Florida are quite

rare and are generally provoked by humans. Just three years earlier, the Florida

Black Bear was listed as an endangered species largely due to the fact that more

than a thousand bears had been lost to vehicular impact since 2009 alone. In

that same time period, 11 bears were shot or euthanized after encounters with

people. Florida’s bear population is currently estimated at around 3,500,

compared to 12,000 before European settlement.

Right now, I don’t see any difference between those innocent Florida black

bears, those beings hunted down in the Orlando nightclub or Trayvon Martin. In

a world that does not see each living being as kin, we are all fair game.

Kinship in indigenous culture, the way of kin, was lived in every moment.

Everything in nature— plant, animal, inanimate, elementals, including the Earth

itself—all considered an essential member of the web. We all belonged to one

another and were equal in stature. We recognized each being’s place. Each was