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There is a war in America that lives in the foundation of history and thrives on the inequality of our nation.  We are a people exhausted by the hundreds of years filled with discrimination and covered by the blood-stained streets of our brothers and sisters. The deeply painful music video mournfully titled,  “I CAN’T BREATHE” are three last words of innocent victims that we have heard before. The video “I CAN’T BREATHE” tells the soul-wrenching terror that blacks have felt by an enemy of people with the perverse notion that judgment and sentencing are within their rights.

We start with a truth so many families have been faced with as a wife receives news that her husband has been murdered by the very people sworn to protect him. It shows a nation still divided by the color of skin.   As the video progresses we find a family man selling cigarettes on the street who is tackled and choked to death as he cries, “I CAN’T BREATHE.” The video shows another family broken by the murder of a father. Another family void of a father figure destined to repeat the never-ending circle of abandonment. Vivian Sessom’s powerful voice is meant with the equally powerful images of a modern-day lynching. “I CAN’T BREATHE,” is how so many, many black people saw their last moments. Heard their last words and took their last breaths. A person lynched by a rope embedded in a neck is a little different from a knee embedded in a neck. “I CAN’T BREATHE” very eloquently address the need to change and repair a nation.

As the music video shows, there is a modern-day gang whose color is blue and who seem to have permission to execute at will.  The video shows that much has not changed since men drove on horses, swung whips onto the backs of slaves, and executed at will. Still, we can only hope that in a world of technological advancements where a human heart can be transplanted in a body so can the heart of a nation come together as one.

Three last words of two men that have inundated the internet. A person does not need to be hung from a rope on a tree to be lynched.

We start with a truth so many families have been faced with as a wife receives news that her husband has been murdered by the very people sworn to protect him void of color. It shows a nation where the color of your skin is recognized as a  threat. We are reminded that although we live in the same nation, we live in two different worlds.  Vivian properly channeled all the feelings of the world that currently exist, and remind others exactly what African Americans suffer from.

Featured Image obtained on the official Facebook of Vivian Sessom