This Week In San Fransicko
Banko Brown was a Black trans man, born and raised in San Francisco. Last Thursday, he and his two siblings went into the Walgreens on Market st in downtown SF, where a security guard, contracted from Texas, shot and killed him.
While some of the details remain mixed depending on the source, I had heard, from people at his vigil, that he was stealing a sandwich. Here is a young Black man in SF, hungry, with his younger siblings in tow, killed for being poor and daring to try and survive.
I have shoplifted a few times, for makeup or food, but never in my life did it cross my mind that I would be killed for petty theft. I think I am still in shock trying to process how this came to be; the reality is the frequent deaths of the most marginalized members of my communities.
I partially feel so badly because so many people know me, they will yell my name in the streets, greet me at events, and introduce me to their loved ones. I always put a smile on, I always speak when invited, and make my best attempts to allow truth to escape my lips only. I speak white lies to try and protect people, but they know I am lying, and I know I am not brave enough to tell them the truth sometimes.
I wanted to sit in the sun and write in my journal, have a sandwich. I bought lunch for my friend Jamil, who has been homeless in Berkeley for 40 years. I told him I was meeting someone so I had to leave, and broke off our conversation, always talking about God in some way, with a lie. I could have told him that I really just wanted to enjoy the sun for a bit.
On the way to the vigil of Banko Brown, I walked past a man that had just OD’d on Market st, a few people stood by, some with tears in their eyes, and the torn apart narcan lay near by. An ambulance had arrived moments earlier and the paramedics were busy hoisting a disgruntled, confused, and scared looking old man onto a gurney. I had no time to process this.
11 am, I get off at 16th st Mission Bart station to meet a mentor for canvassing at a may day parade. Many Mission based orgs, people from all over, had gathered around impassioned speakers that demanded humane treatment, fair pay for their work, a living wage and healthcare protections for their jobs. Trans latinas spoke, a young woman with an immigrant mother spoke, labor leaders and working people spoke, I heard Tagalog, Spanish, and English. We prepared to march to Civic Center Bart, and made a stop in the front of city hall. Singing, dancing, drumming the whole way, I spoke to my mentor about my research.
I have been working with my research group at Berkeley to create an accessible, accurate, and understandable radiation/environmental detector. One of his questions was “Will it tell you if you need to get away?” and I didn’t know how to answer that. Sure, it can tell you something is super radioactive, and then you will go where? What about having lived next to or on top of that your whole life, what could that mean? What if the neighbors have it worse? What if you lose your home because the government needs to “clean it up” and sell it to some hungry developers…
I feel so badly, my mind is racing at a hundred miles an hour, I can hardly breathe between the cigarette smoke, smog, and Spring allergies. I can hardly eat between spending my money on rent, cigarettes, and booze, let alone the stomach aches from aforementioned cigarettes and booze.
My roommate while I was in emergency housing is 19 years old, I hardly gave much insight as to how she ended up rooming with a 23 year old trans woman, chick with a dick, or man who speaks in a high pitch (depends who you ask). She and her friends saw me and called my name out, and I heard a whisper of it. I thought I was hallucinating, deliriously tired and manic am I. She messaged me and said as much, and I just feel embarrassed. That so much is going on, that I care, that I can only do what I can do, that I couldn’t even bear to smile and wave at her. Who was so kind to me in my time of need.
The shame of it all.
