Don’t Expect Me to Work After Police Brutality Makes the News

This is not a vacation day. This is sick time.

Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.

When the police killing of a Black person makes the news, I call off work the next day.

It’s not anything I announce or work out with my boss. I don’t go on social media and put my foot down. I simply commit to watching as much verifiable news about the story as I can stomach, go to bed, and when my alarm goes off the next morning, I call or email to say I won’t be working. That’s the rule.

It doesn’t matter where the Black person was killed. It doesn’t matter if the officer’s body cam was working. It doesn’t matter what the Black person was doing prior to being shot, since the perilous list of “[fill in the blank] while Black” activities is long and constantly growing. The gender of the Black person in question is irrelevant. The age of the Black person is irrelevant. The contents of the pockets of the Black person are irrelevant. I am calling off work however that story breaks.

If an important deadline falls on the day after the killing of a Black person by the police, I’m sorry. If it throws the schedule out of whack, it is what it is. If I was…