SCRJ has created space for students interns and research assistants as part of its mission to promote racial equality. This allows them to share their personal reflections on race and to also be able to provide independent perspectives. Micayla Bozeman is the first Student Voices essay.
I painted a sign on cardboard on May 30, 2020. It said, “I can’t breath.” It was written in all black.
I painted in red the names of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Abery, Eric Garner. Travon Martin, Tamir rice, Sandra Bland and other people. To represent George Floyd’s last words and the emotional state I was feeling, I painted “I can’t breath” in red. I wrote a poem about how it felt to see Black people being killed by police.
My poem was finished:
“It’s hard to breathe when I have the constant task of defending why Black people should have basic human rights.
I can’t breath.
I can’t breath when I think
My dad is next?
My brothers are next?
My nephews are next?
Who are my friends?
Who will I be?
Every day I feel like I’m unable to breathe.
I can’t breath…
I want the one to be choked to death for 8 minutes while begging for his life.”
It’s almost three years later, and it hasn’t changed. It has actually gotten worse. In the United States, there were at most 1,176 deaths in 2022. I’m still tracing names onto cardboard.
After hearing the shocking news about his death in January I felt my heart race and my breath get shorter as I painted Tyre Nichols in red. I could have painted the 78 names that represent the U.S. police deaths in 2023. I attended a vigil in February with 70 other Stanford students. We mourned the deaths at the hands the police of Black Americans. My eyes filled with tears as I listened to the Stanford students read their poems. I thought back to the poem I wrote in 2020 and realized how much more afraid I am now for my Black family members’ lives. I fear not only for the lives of my family members off campus but also for my life on campus.
A police officer pointed his weapon at a Black male in his car while he was driving on Stanford’s campus the night of January 28. Although the University says that an “outside contractor” is investigating, how could this have happened? This incident makes me wonder what Stanford’s 33.5 million public security project is doing to “protect” us, if we continue to be targeted on our campus. Stanford thinks being Black is a crime. This unfair target was placed on our backs. The sign on the Green Library side says “Know Justice, know Peace.” But if Stanford doesn’t know justice it shouldn’t be able to get to know peace.
I’m tired of painting names with red. I won’t paint the name of another Stanford student. Students marched to Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS), requesting that they be “cops off campus”. They also compiled a list of demands to Stanford to ensure our safety. These demands include the immediate defunding of SUDPS, the termination of the Memorandum of Understanding between Santa Clara County and Santa Clara County which gave rise to the SUDPS, the end of $2.5 million in security camera expansions; the redirection of security funds to address sexual violence on campus; as well as adequate trauma-informed community-centered resources to survivors of sexual assault. These demands will not resolve the larger issue of violent policing in America, but they will be an example of how campuses and communities like Stanford can work together to create safer environments for all.
For Black students at Stanford to feel safe, valued, and welcome, there is still much to do. Stanford students aren’t done with fighting police violence on campus and calling for an end of campus policing. #NoMoreNames
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Micayla Bozeman is a senior from Lansing (Michigan) and will graduate in spring with a double major in Political Science as well as a minor in Psychology. She has been a Bay Area Law School intern and worked as an intern at the Social Concepts Lab, where she studied racism and race representations in psychological research. She is also an intern at the Court Listening Project, where she works with Professor Matthew Clair. Micayla hopes to attend law school.
Follow @slap_stanford to keep up with the advocacy efforts of Stanford students like MIcayla.