*Meet Ja’han Jones. He’s a writer had an epiphany earlier this year when he noticed that 197 black people had already been killed by police. He knew he could very well be one of them, so he wrote his own obituary.
Interesting, huh? Check out what Jones, who lives in Harlem wrote:
“Ja’han Elliot Jones, 24, was unarmed when shot and killed in conflict with local police officers,” the obituary reads. “His familiarity with the Black canon steered him into a potent state of unapologetic Blackness ― one in which the James Baldwins and Young Jeezy’s; the bell hookses and the Queen Bey’s; the Frantz Fanons and the Futures all occupied hollowed, cherished beautiful space in Jones’ identity.”
At first Jones was going to submit what he came up with as a freelance item, but then he realized he’s not the only one with those thoughts, so he created the “Black Obituary Project.”
“So often, we are killed and our photos are posted about but our stories are not,” Jones told The Huffington Post. “This grants black folks agency we’re often denied in death. We are telling our stories ― speaking of our triumphs and tragedies ― before anyone else attempts to do so for us.”
He added that one of the goals is to show the wide range of people who fall victim to anti-black violence.
“We are all harmed ― young, old, righteous, ratchet, and all between,” he said. Jones notes that the 80 obituaries that have been written so far show that “black folks are uniquely burdened by the weight of mortality.”
Yes, it’ not exactly something to raise your spirits, but Jones thinks and hopes it something that will be therapeutic for those who participate.
“I pursued this project because I hoped to publicize that we, black people, have reconciled the darkness of our circumstances with the brightness of our aspiration. The darkness isn’t our doing. We live in it, but we didn’t create it. So highlighting that darkness, in my opinion, indicts our nation in a way I feel is necessary.”
The “Black Obituary Project” is open for submissions and will continue accepting them indefinitely, Jones said.
You can read/learn MORE about the mind-blowing “Black Obituary Project” at the Huffington Post.
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