deaths involving police officers

early this morning i fell awake - a very strange thing.
rarely for me i had had a lot of sleep in the previous 48 hours, so at 4am i woke up and stayed awake for about two hours.
i began to do a bit of research for the play and for this blog.
hmm.....

i actually had to stop in the end because what i found was so distressing.
the result of my research is to be found in the 'links' section - all the ones that begin with the word 'about'.

it occurred to me, that i might later be criticised for focussing in the play exclusively on deaths of black men as opposed to black people (non gender specific).
i thought about that for a while.
i certainly do not intend to belittle or sideline the tragic deaths of women like cynthia jarrett (UK) and maream ndeye sarr (Germany) - or those for that matter of many other individuals who have died in mysterious circumstances which involved police action or negligence (or worse) who are not black.

in the end i decided that i needed to start from the main character and work on what was going through her mind at the time in which the play is set.
and the main character is shocked by the recent deaths of black men - she identifies with this specifically because she is the mother of a young boy... a future black man.
this thought scares her completely - hence the focus on black men.

if you can, take some time to follow the 'about' links and spot the pattern...
and then lie down and consider that this is just a fraction of the deaths that i found out about.