This unusually crafted memoir is a Caucasian wife's firsthand account of her African-American/Native American husband's unprovoked 2009 attack by suburban Chicago police, and the couple's painful, yet poignant years together - and apart - that followed.
This unusually crafted memoir is a Caucasian wife's firsthand account of her African-American/Native American husband's unprovoked 2009 attack by suburban Chicago police, and the couple's painful, yet poignant years together - and apart - that followed.
We had some time to kill. Our 4-wheel drive rental had died on the side of the road. Actually, luckily, it died on the side of the beach. We had just driven the hell out of it through the tidal pools. The entire time, she was holding onto her straw hat and trying to keep her white shirt on. So when the Jeep broke down, it was almost as hair-raising to her as the landing we made on the island in the twin-engine plane the day before. She is more than a little rattled as she staggers down the rocky shoreline carrying a picnic basket and a cooler while I carry the boogie boards and snorkeling gear. She picks a spot on the beach, under a palm tree and sits down in the sand. She opens the cooler, opens two Presidente beers and says, “This is where we’re supposed to be, honey.”
She toasts to the West, she toasts to the East, gleaming with this very sexy smile, as I float on a boogie board, looking at the multi-colored fishes. Yes, fishes - millions of them. I do not exaggerate - millions. Her flowered bikini never looked better on any human being ever in the history of bikinis. Her smile is radiant. It could probably be seen from Neptune. Every now and then, she walks to the water’s edge and dips her feet in. Sometimes she goes in ankle deep. Her smile is still just as radiant. She keeps adjusting the straw hat because she’s very very fair skinned and she’s never been on a tropical island with 100 degree temperatures in the shade. They always say in the songs, “96 degrees in the shade”. It’s still 100.
So, she sashays, in her sandals, across the hot sand, into the water, calf deep, knee deep, belly deep, and ooh right there deep, and hands me a Presidente beer. Now, she holds the Presidente beer perfectly. It doesn’t slosh. It doesn’t move to the right or left. It doesn’t foam over. It comes directly to my hand on the boogie board without missing a stroke. So smooth is the sashay, it doesn’t even scare the fishes. Now, the walk of happiness, I don’t know for sure whether it’s because of the tropical setting or because it is our honeymoon. But the glide in her stride, the dip in her hip, lets me know that she has never been happier.
In her memoir, Walking While Black, Polly J. Runyon-Sanders aims to fulfill her late husband's dying wish and tells the story of the brutal, unprovoked tasing and beating by the police of a Native-American/African-American citizen.
Anthonii Sanders's name deserves to be mentioned on billboards and during marches, along with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many others, as a testament to systemic racism within the police. His death wasn't immediate and thus didn't make the news, but after the Incident, as the couple called it, Anthonii Sanders's and his wife's life changed drastically. For them, a hot August evening/night in 2009 became a watershed separating 'before' and 'after:' being a respected teacher, a musician, a husband, a son, a father, and a thinker vs. struggling emotionally, physically, and financially. Like black Americans before and after him, Anthonii Sanders wrestled for breathing while cops tazed him multiple times, stomped his fingers, tore his arms apart, and cursed him for allegedly beating his wife - and she has never confirmed these accusations. In the police officers' eyes and the eyes of ER doctors who treated his tazer wounds afterward, Anthonii Sanders was a junkie, a man with no medical insurance, a Black boy who got a White suburban girlfriend. Friday night's entertainment, they called him. What followed the Incident was a five-year-long survival on edge between doctors' appointments during the day and constant nightmares during the night.
The book's power lies partially in bringing the Incident to the limelight but partially in returning to life Anthonii Sanders's voice that was silenced by the beating. Vibrant, straightforward, heart-touching - these words describe his poetry and music included in the book. Walking While Black also offers an intimate, oftentimes chaotic, yet moving story of the relationship between two people, which ended in June 2014. That's what the readers could remember after finishing the book's last page; that love doesn't die with a loved one.
I can't stress enough how Walking While Black is a must-read. Suppose a reader cannot handle the emotional element of Anthonii's story. In this respect, the book, with its profoundly personal view of being a victim of police brutality, with an accurate description of PTSD symptoms, may traumatize and trigger some readers. The sensitive public can limit themselves to reading short appendixes with Anthonii's notes about the event and its consequences.
I obtained an advance review copy through Reedsy Discovery, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.