It has taken a while for me to figure out what to write. When
stuff gets bad, I like to be able to write out my feelings. It’s a way of
channeling my rage and my sorrow into something that might be productive. But I
really didn’t know what to do this time. Had no idea, and no will to do it.
Even now, as I begin pushing the keys on my keyboard, I’m not sure what will
come out. But I know that writing is the only way I can begin to process this.
The whole past week has been incredibly difficult, but Friday
was especially hard for me. I started my day desperately trying not to cry into
my oatmeal before I got on a Zoom call for an internship I had only just started
two days ago. The night before I watched the results of peaceful protests,
protests in which people demanded justice for a man callously killed over
nothing, and for every person who had been slain by police because of the color
of their skin, devolve into law enforcement firing canister after canister of
tear gas, and shoving and hitting protesters. And I couldn’t handle it.
Being Black in America is an exceedingly particular
experience. It is spending every day knowing that your country does not care
about you and becoming acclimated to that thought until it is second nature,
but refusing to accept it. Accepting it would mean rejecting your own humanity,
and now one can take that from you, not even you. And if you ever think that
you’re making progress, that maybe the grip of the system is weakening, that
the heel of the boot is off your neck leaving only the toes of oppression, there
is always a reminder that it’s not.
Have you ever stopped to really think about what that’s like?
One day you read news that some skinny kid, dresses pretty similarly to you, only
a couple years younger, is dead because I guess he cut through the wrong part
of town and, well, if he only hadn’t run into an overzealous wannabe cop. Or another
time, some lady gets stopped in her car, she looks like you, is only a little bit
older, gets arrested, and then she’s found hanging dead in her cell. Or another
day, some guy gets stopped in his car, looks like you, older than you but not by
much, and he gives every possible warning about what he legally has in his car
and that he will have reach towards that area, and he still ends up dead. Or a
different day, a kid, looks like you did when you were a kid, playing with a
toy, gets killed by an officer because the officer thinks he might be a threat.
Or that one time a guy who looks like you, standing in his backyard, was holding
his cellphone, but his cellphone might be a gun, so an officer kills him. Or
another day, a woman, looks like you, your age, is asleep in her bed in her
home and, oh, guess she got killed by a police officer. Or another day, man,
looks like you, older, and someone thinks he might have used a fake $20.00 bill,
so, you know, I mean, that’s twenty whole dollars, so I guess he’s gotta go,
right? Or another day, a man, looks like you, has big nerdy energy like you, has
the cops called on him because he asked someone else to obey the law.
That’s a lot of examples, right? A lot and it barely covers
the big national stories from 2012 to now, and nowhere near all those, let
alone the things that didn’t make national news. Now imagine that happening to
you all the time, and every single time the response seems to be centered
around the fact that policing is hard, not that someone who looks like you is
dead. Or that the dead person was no angel because, once, when they were five,
they stole their brother’s Tonka truck revealing their true colors as a vicious
thief and dreg of society. Now imagine what it’s like every time you walk by a
police officer, especially one that’s heavily armed as they so often are now.
A lot of being a Black person in America is that. It’s being
asked to relive that trauma over and over and over and over and over and over
again, and then being expected to just roll with it. It’s to know in your heart
you’re worth every bit as much as everyone else but that your country isn’t
really sure that’s true. Actually, it’s pretty sure you’re not worth as much as
anybody else. So sometimes you try to tell it that it’s wrong and every time
you’re told “All Lives Matter,” or “Blue Lives Matter,” or you’re called a “son
of a bitch,” or you’re asked about “Black on Black crime,” or you’re told to
pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, or you’re told to vote. That is exhausting.
I’m not sure I can truly impress upon you how psychically exhausting
that is without you living it. That isn’t to say there isn’t joy in the
American Black experience, because there is, but every day is a constant
reminder that you have to fight to be considered worth enough to be heard, and your
very act of living is an act of rebellion.
That is what was going on in my head on Friday morning as I
silently cried in my cereal. That is what was going on in my head throughout
the day whenever I would close my eyes and I’d see George Floyd, or I’d see
cops hitting people with batons. That is what I was thinking about the next day
when I read about a friend’s harrowing experience of being at a protest and
being sprayed and hit by the police. Because for me, and for so many people
like me, this isn’t just about the fact that it’s morally right that we be
treated with the same dignity and humanity as everyone else, it is literally
about our survival. It is about our ability to walk down the street and not die
at random because some cop got nervous, or some lady or man got anxious, or
someone didn’t like the tone you took with them.
If you’re non-Black, and especially if you’re white, please,
please, if you do nothing else, just check in on a Black friend of yours. I
cannot overstate how much that means. And it means more than your Facebook post
that racism is bad, or your fire tweet, or Insta share. Yes, do that too, but
the actual allyship is felt when you reach out. And don’t expect that you’re
friend is going to respond right away, or ever, because now is a lot, but
literally just the act of you doing that means you are acknowledging their
humanity and their pain so much of this moment is centered around the fact that
our pain never seems to matter. I also really want emphasize how important this
is to my male friends who want to be allies, because generally women understand
the costs and effects of emotional labor better than us guys and are much more
willing to do it when they know it’s needed, and in this moment you cannot let
your female friends do all the check-ins for you. It’s not fair. Don’t do that.
This is literally the least you can do, so please do it.
I also want to express that it is so painful to see radio
silence. Everyone’s hearts are just shattered to pieces and they don’t know
what’s going on, and if you have made no indication at all that you have acknowledged
this pain, it makes it so much worse. No one is asking you to be Malcolm or
Martin or James, but we are asking you to do a little bit.
Also, simply saying “vote” is not the answer. Voting is
foundational to our country. Despite how messed up our system is, despite the
barrier after barrier that has been put up, I still believe in it with all my
heart. People have died so I could vote. But all that being said, voting is not
the answer to this problem. This problem is so much more than voting. Making
Trump go away doesn’t fix this problem. Making a lot of federal level officials
go away doesn’t fix this problem. Making a lot of local officials go away doesn’t
fix this problem. All of that helps, but we are talking about such an
entrenched system and such complete reversal of people’s consciously and subconsciously
held beliefs that simply saying “vote” is to ignore not only the enormity of
the situation, but the humanity of it, and to reduce it to red vs. blue.
Neither side knows what they’re doing when it comes dealing with police brutality
and the humanity of Black folks. Yes, one is better, but better is not good, it’s
just better. So don’t forget that voting is important, but start thinking about
what else you can offer that is more substantial than tepid cries to vote in an
election that isn’t for just under six months from now.
If you’re looking for some other concrete things you can do,
I suggest, if you have ability, and I know that considering the global pandemic
a lot of you might not, donating to some bail funds. In particular, I suggest Minnesota
Freedom Fund and the Free Them All Fund to help out demonstrators in
Minneapolis and NYC, or you can find a whole list on the National Bail Fund’s website. An
option you can do that costs you no money is putting pressure on your local and
state elected representatives to defund police departments and to hold officers
who abuse their power to account (which is to say excessively spray, beat, and
run over protesters, all of which are things officers have done over the past
three days). Remember, just like in the federal government, most local governments
have the mayor or manager propose a budget that a city council will either yea
or nay, and a lot of them are going through that process right now.
I know some of you are protesting and some of you are
wondering if you should or shouldn’t. I honestly can’t tell you one way or the
other, because I know how important it is that there are people in the streets
right now demanding justice and humanity, but I also know that I don’t want any
of you getting sick or getting your loved ones sick. Your decision is going to
be based on evaluating what kind of protest you’re going to (on foot or in car),
how long you’ll be there, who you live with, if you’re going to run into a lot
of people during your daily life afterward, and so much more. I can’t do that
analysis for you, but I can tell you to really think about it, because I don’t
want you risking your loved one’s life for mine, that’s not right.
I have centered the Black experience here because I am Black
and this moment is about the continued devaluation of Black lives. But I also
recognized that my freedom is dependent on the freedom of my brothers and
sisters, and I know that there are other marginalized peoples that can identify
with the cocktail of rage, anguish, sorrow, helplessness, and determination I
feel right now because your people are devalued like mine are. I see you. I
thank you for fighting for me. And I promise to fight for you.
Finally, to every Black person, to every person who shares my
skin and my history, who carries their trauma in their veins and continues to
wake up every day determined to simply live another day in defiance of a world
that demands you put out your light: I love you and I am thankful to be counted
among you.
