We Are Not Trespassing. We Are Living. There is a kind of danger Black people know by instinct before we ever learn the words for it. It
Photo by MART PRODUCTION
We Are Not Trespassing. We Are Living.
There is a kind of danger Black people know by instinct before we ever learn the words for it.
It is the danger of being harmed and still having to manage the feelings of the person harming you.
It is the danger of being afraid and having to make your fear look acceptable.
It is the danger of being disabled, grieving, overwhelmed, injured, or in pain, and still being expected to perform calmness for people who hold power over your body.
That is what I thought about when I read the reported account of Vince “Fresh The DJ” Colston, a disabled Black man with a traumatic brain injury and paralysis on one side of his body, allegedly being forced by airport security at Harry Reid International Airport to stand unaided for several minutes.
His wheelchair was not a luxury. It was not an accessory. It was not a preference.
For many disabled people, a wheelchair is safety. It is balance. It is dignity. It is medical protection. It is the difference between moving through the world and being endangered by it.
Yet according to the account shared publicly by his family, Vince was made to stand while security offered no clear explanation for why the search could not happen while he remained in his wheelchair. Since then, he has reportedly suffered more than 30 silent seizures in two weeks.
His mother’s words opened up the deeper wound.
“I was afraid they would just see an angry Black dude with dreadlocks… and not a brain injury.”
There it is.
That is the wire under the floor.
She was not only worried about his medical condition. She was worried about interpretation. She was worried about how strangers with authority might read his distress. She was worried that a Black disabled man in neurological overwhelm might not be seen as a person in need of care, but as a threat to control.
That is a terrible burden to place on a mother.
That is a terrible burden to place on a disabled man.
That is a terrible burden to place on Black people, again and again and again.
We have seen this pattern before.
We saw it when a woman, Cherrie Moore, being struck by an officer still had to worry about how her reaction would be judged.
We saw it when Diamond Reynolds had to speak with impossible restraint after Philando Castile was shot in the front seat of a car, with a child watching from the back seat.
We saw it in the voice of that four-year-old child, begging her mother to stay calm because she did not want the officer to shoot her too.
A child should not have to manage the emotional temperature of armed adults.
A mother should not have to swallow terror to keep herself and her child alive.
We are not talking about people being “uncomfortable,” “disagreeing,” or “shuffling away”; we are talking about people being brutally and physically violent. Life-threatening.
AND THEN……everyone carrying on as if it is normal and supposed to happen.
A disabled Black man should not have to make his pain look non-threatening before people believe his body has limits.
This is not just about one airport. It is about a pattern that keeps following Black people into ordinary places.
Traffic stops.
Sidewalks.
Hospitals.
Schools.
Airports.
Stores.
Public parks.
Places where we are not trespassing. Places where we are not invading. Places where we are not crossing anybody’s boundaries.
We are simply living.
And yet, too often, the system behaves as if our presence creates a problem that must be managed. Our bodies are questioned. Our tone is monitored. Our fear is policed. Our disability is doubted. Our pain is treated like attitude.
Disabled people know this too.
They know what it means to be stared at, rushed, questioned, touched without consent, doubted, or forced to prove that their own body cannot do what someone else demands.
They know what it means to have access treated like a favor instead of a right.
They know what it means to be told, directly or indirectly, “Make this easier for us,” when the whole point of accommodation is that the world is supposed to stop making life harder for them.
Now add Blackness to that.
Now add dreadlocks.
Now add a brain injury.
Now add a mother trying to calm her son while also trying to keep strangers from misreading him.
That is not just stress. That is a survival assignment.
Too many Black families live with this quiet calculation: How do I protect my loved one from harm while also protecting them from being misunderstood as dangerous?
That calculation is exhausting.
It is also dangerous.
Because when vulnerable people are forced to manage the feelings of powerful people, the truth gets flipped upside down. The person at risk becomes responsible for keeping everyone else comfortable. The injured person becomes responsible for staying pleasant. The frightened person becomes responsible for appearing harmless. The disabled person becomes responsible for proving, over and over, that their needs are real.
That is not safety.
That is control dressed up as procedure.
Security does not have to mean humiliation. Screening does not have to mean medical danger. Authority does not have to mean ignoring the body in front of you.
A wheelchair-dependent person should not be forced to stand unaided without a clear, medically safe, dignity-preserving reason.
A person with a brain injury should not be treated as difficult because distress shows up on their face.
A Black man should not have to overcome a stranger’s racial imagination before being treated with care.
And a mother should not have to stand between her disabled son and the world’s suspicion, translating his humanity in real time.
We need to wake up and see the wires.
This is how systems teach vulnerable people to shrink. Be calm. Be quiet. Be grateful. Be easy to handle. Do not make them nervous. Do not make them uncomfortable. Do not let your pain become too visible. Do not let your anger sound like anger. Do not let your fear move too loudly through your body.
But human beings are not machines. Disabled bodies are not props. Black people are not public threats by default.
We are allowed to need help.
We are allowed to be scared.
We are allowed to be disabled in public.
We are allowed to be frustrated when our dignity is mishandled.
We are allowed to exist without turning our whole lives into a performance of harmlessness.
Vince “Fresh The DJ” Colston deserved accommodation, patience, explanation, and care. His mother deserved to be heard without having to plead for people to see the obvious. His wheelchair should have been understood as part of his safety, not treated as an obstacle to someone else’s process.
This is where accountability begins.
Not with vague apologies.
Not with “we followed procedure.”
Not with making the family carry the burden of proving harm after the harm is already done.
Accountability begins with asking better questions.
Why was he required to stand?
What disability accommodations were offered?
Were medical risks considered?
Were staff trained to recognize traumatic brain injury, paralysis, seizure risk, and neurological distress?
Was his mother listened to?
Was there a safer way to complete the screening?
And why do Black disabled people still have to fight so hard to be treated as people first?
We are not trespassing.
We are not asking for special permission to be human.
We are not crossing boundaries by bringing our disabled bodies, Black bodies, grieving bodies, frightened bodies, aging bodies, injured bodies, and beloved bodies into public space.
We are simply living.
And living should not require us to spend our strength managing the feelings of people who have already failed to manage their power.
**Every single person with a disability deserves to request a carer that is safe and that they do not have to prove and explain their right to dignity, respect, health, and well-being to.**
@1freshmom Over the last two weeks, my son has been hospitalized twice. Over 30 seizures. w/ 9 seizures in one day They can’t figure out why. All they do is increase the medicine medicate him more and send him home ##WeNeedASolution##LifeAfterTrauma##Seizures##TBI##ForTheDj ♬ original sound – Lisa Colston
https://www.tiktok.com/@1freshmom/video/7649390748344929567?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7623054026784343583