That Lion, #SayHerName, and Sandra Bland

My mind makes odd connections, so bear with me on this post.

I know that there is an internet uproar about how much sympathy has gone out for this guy:

Cecil the Lion

as opposed to

Women in the U.S. Killed by Law Enforcement Officers

I do get this. How come human beings who live in the Land of the Brave, the Home of the Free cannot get this much sympathy when unarmed and killed by law enforcement officers who are rarely, if ever, held responsible for their transgressions? Where was all of this outrage when Sandra Bland was dragged out of her car by a Texas "law enforcement officer" for failing to put out a cigarette? Where was the outrage when she turned up dead in her jail cell after the system decided that she "committed suicide" in her jail cell? Where is the outrage in the context of 5 women having been declared dead by suicide in other jail cells across the nation?

And now we're supposed to feel badly because some damned lion on the African continent is dead? Killed?

There is one little thing . . . the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism that yokes all of this together. Europeans, in the context of building American societies (and when I write it this way, I don't only mean it in the context of the U.S.A., but also South America, Canada, and the Caribbean), had no problem exploiting resources on the African continent for their own good. In the 16th centuries through 19th centuries, that meant purchasing Black bodies for labor, using them up, and purchasing a new one to replace it. I think the way law enforcement targets Black bodies lately (regardless of gender), is the fallout from this long-standing precedent with which we have not made peace. Given the little respect given for anything that comes from the African continent, recently or much earlier, does it surprise you that a U.S. dentist who hunts exotic game would have no qualms shooting this beautiful lion, regardless of the meaning of it to the community? There are two underlying assumptions here: Blacks have no community; and what is on the African continent is for our own good.

I do not posit solutions here. I simply insist that there are more connections between wildlife and Black bodies than we are comfortable making. Not because Black people are wild animals, but because we are yolked in a common history vis-a-vis that continent.

#SayHerName. #BlackLivesMatter

Just sayin'.