Through My Eyes: Reflections on Assata Shakur
They called her a terrorist. Said she killed a cop. Said she ran. Said she didn't deserve peace.
But what they don’t say, LOUD ENOUGH, is that Assata Shakur was shot herself. That she was bleeding. That the ballistics showed she didn’t fire a weapon. That her prints weren’t on the gun. But, she was convicted anyway.
They don’t talk about how she gave birth while shackled to a hospital bed under armed guard surveillance. They don’t talk about how the system had its crosshairs on her long before that night.
I’m not here to debate guilt or innocence. I’m here to tell you: the facts didn’t and still don't matter to them. Because when you're a Black woman who resists, the system doesn't want justice. It wants your submission. Your silence. Your slow death under their rules.
And let’s talk about the double standard while we’re here:
Assata was convicted because she was there. Because of who she rode with. Because she was part of a movement.
But when we talk about police officers who stand silent while harm happens? When we talk about the culture of cover-ups, silence, and "brotherhood"? Suddenly we hear:
“You can’t blame the whole department.” “Not all cops.”
You can’t have it both ways. If proximity equals guilt, let’s be consistent. Let’s look at who gets protected and who gets buried.
I’m not mad at all that she got away. I’m not mad at all that Cuba gave her asylum. I’m not mad at all that she found a way to live.
This country was never going to let her live on her own terms. Somehow found a way and she lived anyway. That’s survival. That’s legacy. That’s the kind of resistance that makes the system shake.
As a Black woman in America, I read her story and I don’t just see her. I see all of us, carrying pain, truth, and fire, and being told we’re “too much” for surviving what we were never meant to survive.
She didn’t just escape. She exposed them. And for that, they can never forgive her. But I remember. And I write.
✊🏾 Through my eyes. From one Black woman to another.