Let’s talk life and death. Let’s talk privilege. Let’s talk white, brown, and black. Let’s talk murder. Let’s talk racism, anti-racism, and allies. No one should have to wake up in the morning scared they might be killed for the skin they wear. No parent should watch their child walk out the door and wonder if they’ll walk back in. No child should have to be taught to look down, compress their feelings, and not engage if they are treated unfairly, abusively, dismissively.
I seethed in anger when I was reading about Christian Cooper, with all the white comments at the top of the stream saying, “Oh, I’m so relieved they took the dog away from her; she was abusing it, choking it like that.” And I am white privileged enough to express that anger. I could have gone out into the street and yelled and thrown stuff around, gone for a run through all the empty houses-under-construction in my subdivision, hopped the fence to a gated community, strapped a weapon to my body, and stormed the capitol building to yell some more. And chances are, I would have returned that night, safe and sound, uncontested, and—most of all—alive. Heck, maybe I should have done that. Instead, I cried and talked to my kids and shared the recent news. (Yeah, remember those white news reporters who got arrested covering the riots even though they asked the police where they should stand to report the news and yet not be in the way? Oh wait. The ones who got arrested were black.) We talked about the murders, the injustice, the horror. The racism that. Has. Never. Stopped.
George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Three humans. Out of how many? I wish I could name them all. It’s sad and wrong that I can’t.
You guys, this isn’t new, this isn’t changed, or different, or bigger than before. It’s the same racism that’s been going for what, the dawn of white man? The difference now is people are recording and sharing it. And we have someone who is supposed to be representing ALL Americans sitting in a white house (of all places), threatening to shoot American citizens and calling white supremacists “good people.”
Let me tell you something else, fellow white fragile people. Privilege doesn’t mean you were raised without struggles or poverty or abuse. It doesn’t mean you were born with a silver spoon or you have a yacht floating out back next to your golf course. Privilege means you can wake up in the morning (and maybe that deserves a full stop right there). But you can wake up, go outside and talk on your cell in your Nana’s yard, go for a jog and play in the park with a toy. Later, if it’s warm, you can hit the gated pool. If it’s cold, you can throw on a hoodie and head for something to eat from your local market. You can walk around aisles, pick things up, decide you want to buy nothing, and leave. You can then get in your car, maybe change lanes without putting on your blinker, drive five miles or more over the speed limit, and commit a California roll-through at a stop sign. You can get into your work truck, have access to your client’s neighborhood (oh, and even leave afterwards), end your day by working out at your business’s gym, return home, play some late-night games with your nephew, and go to bed and sleep for, get this, the whole night through. And if someone breaks down your door while you’re sleeping, you even have the right to defend yourself. All without being profiled. Or followed. Questioned. Threatened. Arrested. Or shot. Killed. That, ladies and gents, is privilege.
Getting stopped and let go for speeding, being allowed to be where technically we don’t belong, and even getting caught doing something actually illegal is not a death sentence to us pale folks. Getting a fair day in court? A sentence that fits the crime (who am I kidding, if I’m rich enough, white enough, and yeah, even man enough, I can get off with much less than) is our right. A death sentence for us is hard to achieve. We’re the lone wolves, the mentally unstable, the “we don’t want to ruin their futures” of our country. Privilege.
That’s not all I want to tell you. Nope. Just no. It’s not #AllLivesMatter or #NotAllWhitePeople. It’s not. Not all lives do matter. Not until we’re all taking a knee or taking to the streets to defend these very human lives. Know something else? Claiming all lives matter when it’s a #BlackLivesMatter moment is like shouting, “What about childhood cancer?!” from the back of a convention about heart disease. Sure, it all matters, but not at this gathering. Not here. Not now. And for all the #NotAllWhatevers folks? Seriously, if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t put it on. Don’t. It was obviously left there for the person who needs to step into it and lug it around. Instead, use that privileged white mouth and speak up for the ones being silenced. Those jokes, those memes, those off-color sound bites. Interrupt them. Question them. Stop them.
For the people saying taking a knee before a game is wrong. Marching and protesting is wrong. Rioting is wrong. Nuh-uh. A platform where you can reach the biggest audience? That’s exactly the right place. For the people fond of saying things like: They’re being sensitive. It’s just the media pushing it all now. I’ve never seen it. Nope. You have exactly zero right to say another person’s story and experience doesn’t allow said-person to feel exactly as they feel. Just because your white ol’ eyeballs haven’t been seeing all the behaviors going on around you, doesn’t mean it’s not lurking right under your nose, right outside your doors, right within your neighborhood. It’s not the media pushing an agenda. It’s reporting what is and always has been happening. Just sometimes someone happens to catch it on camera.
I’m so full of all words and all emotions, but as a privileged, white female, I need to learn when to step up—in front of, next to, or behind the colorful voices out there. Whatever the situation requires. Right now, I’m making way for Carmen’s voice. Carmen, a black deputy district attorney in my white brother-in-law’s firm:
“I am not okay. These repeated murders of Black people are a lot to handle, and the trauma is only compounded by the pandemic (my dad thankfully recovered). Honestly, sometimes I am afraid to leave my home. I almost called in Black today. As if it could get any worse, I woke up to a tweet from our President threatening to respond to property crimes with military and shooting. I promise it is all too much. I’m in the office preparing […]. I decided to do what Black folks always do—keep pushing. I decided to show up and professionally strive for justice in a system that has never been just to Black people.”
Check in on your black and brown friends, neighbors, coworkers, strangers. Check in with your white ones. Tell those ones to get their act together. Standing on the sidelines and being horrified by the racism doesn’t actually fix it. Neither does “I don’t see color.” Yeah, you do. Now honor it and respect it. Take action. Learn the history. Listen to the tales. Face the mirror. Use your voice.
Here are some resources.
https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/05/9841376/black-trauma-george-floyd-dear-white-people