My roommate rented the moving truck and I hired the mover.
Never before in life have I been so self-conscious of “moving while black,” but in this current political climate, I seriously considered getting a canvas banner printed up with all three of our pictures on it with a caption that read, “Don’t Call the Cops: Your New Neighbors Are Black.”
Obviously, I didn’t do that. First of all, I was just moving from one apartment to another within the same complex. I’d lived in this community for 9 years; so there was a good chance that surrounding neighbors had already seen me even if they hadn’t seen my future roommate or cousin who helped with the move.
Secondly, this was a pretty mixed neighborhood. It wasn’t as if we stood out as the POC who may have been mistaken as burglars, brazenly stealing things from one apartment to another just down the parking lot.
Lastly, I didn’t have the bandwidth to get a canvas printed up. Although I’d begun the process of packing/donating/recycling/trashing on July 1st, I still had other shit to do besides the move.
When my cousin saw how close the new apartment was to the old apartment,
his mindset changed about putting everything into the truck. Things my roommate and I saw as “heavy,” he saw as “light.” I rather enjoyed the one-man strong parade. Too bad I only took one picture of him carrying the bed frame. I’ll just have to hold in my memory all the other times he balanced a heavy box on either shoulder and walked with ease down a flight of stairs and the parking lot.
After everything was moved in, we took our group picture in front of the Uhaul blurb, which depicted a runaway slave going to Canada to be free. Thank God our move wasn’t as fraught with danger.
Best of all, no one called the police on us. As I celebrated that low expectation, I thought about how the police in The South had originally formed to protect people who consider themselves “white” and their property, including slaves. That full-circle thought just exhausted me even more.
Better to unpack all my boxes before I continue unpacking the history of the police in The U.S.