The story behind the fires

The world felt pretty awful in so many ways before last Monday. We’re in the middle of a pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 Americans and infected more than a million. Millions of Americans are unemployed and desperately wondering how long they can hold on without the help they need. And so many Americans have been working because they have little choice. 

It’s like the whole world has just stopped—except some things didn’t.

In a very short period of time, the murder of three black Americans has reminded us that racism never takes a break. And one of those murders was so brutal—so heinous—that many of us were stunned. One of those murders was captured by a cellphone camera, and it was perpetrated by a white police officer.

We’ve held the match over the tinderbox. 

The video of a black man being pinned to the ground with a white police officer’s knee on his neck until the man lost consciousness and subsequently died has left many of us asking how this kind of act can be happening in 2020.

Sadly, the “many of us” asking the question are white, because for 400 years, black people have been the victims of a level of brutality to which we cannot relate.

That brutality began with being ripped away from their homes and families. Their cultural identities were erased, and their names taken away from them. They were enslaved to build a new land where their kidnappers could enjoy new lives and freedoms that they themselves would be denied. They were whipped, beaten and degraded. Their children and families were sold away from them. Women were raped. They were murdered. All of these things were done for generations. 

Many of our ancestors probably thought we had adequately addressed the wrong with the abolishment of slavery. On paper, blacks were no longer property.

But slavery is more than a law—more than a piece of paper stating ownership. Slavery is as much societal and cultural as it is literal. The physical chains may be gone, but the real chains never went away. 

We have maintained the enslavement of the black community in so many ways. We have managed to limit their access to the same quality of education our own children receive. We have made it difficult for black Americans to receive loans in order to own homes or start their own businesses. We maintain barriers to success that ensure the road out of poverty will be much rockier for them. We perpetuate the lies that black people are lazy, they’re often involved in criminal activity and gangs. We perpetuate the idea that the reason they can’t succeed is because they don’t really want to, and they just want someone else to blame. There are few avenues that offer success and a modicum of freedom. If you are a phenomenal athlete or entertainer, you might have a chance. If you play ball, sing or dance for our entertainment or so we can profit from you, we may find value in you. We have created a culture of oppression and fear that has mothers teaching their children how they must behave in hopes that when they are pulled over or approached by a police officer, they might make it home alive. We have made sure they understand even the smallest infraction or crime will be heavily punished, and they will likely be incarcerated for that crime for a much longer duration than we would be for a crime two or three times more significant. We have found multiple ways in which to openly lynch black Americans—we’re so good at it, that now we can do it in their homes while they sleep, we can do it while they are jogging in their neighborhoods, and we can do it with our knee upon their neck while dozens helplessly watch. 

As a white middle class woman, these are things I know. But I also know that my “knowledge” barely scratches the surface of the story for black Americans.

As we approach the seventh day since George Floyd was murdered by a police officer, our country is openly burning, and many of us are in shock. We’re in shock when we see this fire because we don’t want this story to be ours. Black Americans don’t have the privilege of denying it. 

For black Americans, their entire existence has been the scene of the fire for generations. For black Americans, every time they try to build hope for a future that belongs to them too, we burn it down. For black Americans, every time they demonstrate the depth of their pain through peaceful means, we burn that peaceful message to remind them we are unwilling to listen. For black Americans, every time they light a candle to see their way to a better future for themselves and their children, we snatch the candle away and set fire to their dreams. 

They owe us nothing, but so many times, and in so many ways they have tried to peacefully tell the story of their pain and fear so we will not only listen, but so we will change. They have been telling us their house is on fire for generations. They have been telling us the story of how they don’t know where they come from, because they were stolen from their countries of origin. They have been telling us the story of how they helped build this country—by force—and they simply want to live as equal citizens alongside the rest of us. They have been telling us the story of how we keep killing them and reminding them that their lives and their stories are as important to us as the ashes swirling in the breeze. 

We haven’t chosen to see them marching down the road with arms linked singing hymns. We haven’t chosen to fulfill the dream. We haven’t chosen to understand the moments when they peacefully asked for their seat on the bus, their desk in the classroom, and their spot at the lunch counter. We haven’t chosen to see them kneeling on a football field and asking for change. We haven’t chosen to hear them when they plead for air because they cannot breathe. 

We see fires. We see broken windows. We see people taking things that don’t belong to them. What we keep failing to see or hear is our part in their story. We choose to see the fires, the broken windows, material objects being stolen, because that makes it easier to push aside the fact that our deliberate oppression and violence is a story we are unwilling to own.

We refuse to accept the story of how we stole a people. We refuse to accept the story of how we worked and sold them like livestock. We refuse to accept the story of how we have murdered them for hundreds of years—because we can. We refuse to accept the story of how we are the ones who set the fires burning down their houses. 

We have refused to hear, understand or accept their story, because if we accept their story, we have to accept our own. 

Doors left ajar and all the big and small things we mourn

So, it really stinks to feel things very deeply—especially the hard things. To be a person who gets a minor emotional scrape, but feels it as if I’m being flayed like a fish can make me feel a little ridiculous—a little weak.

Today’s one of those days. 

Nothing about the last five months has been easy, but the last two have been especially hard, and today feels like a comma in a sentence that will never have a proper punctuation to end it. 

I got in my car to drive down the hill to my daughter’s school this morning. It’s the day we pick up personal belongings and drop off library books. When I got into my car, I didn’t feel so much as a pin prick—it was just a task to complete. 

Maybe it was all of the “we miss you signs,” or the balloons bundled like arches, trying to remind everyone that the end of a school year is supposed to be a happy thing. Instead, it felt like unfinished business—a door left ajar.

I’m always the emotional, weepy mom dropping off the first day, and picking up the last. Maybe that’s just how it was going to be anyway. I felt myself mourning the fact that she didn’t get an end of the year hug from her kindergarten teacher. And whether I thought the day I went to help her class pack up everything they needed for distance learning was probably going to be the last day for them or not—I would never have spoken those words or accepted them. 

When I arrived home with the ridiculous tears streaming down my face, my husband reminded me that our daughter doesn’t know the difference. She doesn’t really have a sense that she missed “the end” of anything in the way many of us are feeling it.

I believe this may be Pete the Cat. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s the end of your kid’s first year, fifth year, or college graduation, for parents who were expecting a proper closing of the door, it feels like we left something important unattended to. And sure, there are plenty of kids feeling that too. 

These are losses for all of us experiencing them. It doesn’t matter whether we think all of the decisions that have been made were appropriate, or if we think closures and restrictions were overkill. Just because I trust science and medicine over politicians and businessmen doesn’t mean I don’t feel the frustrations, anxiety, the anger about different decisions, and the sadness about so many little losses. In fact, because of the way I am built mentally, I don’t feel any of these things in a vacuum—I feel them for every single one of us. 

They’re all hard things—no matter how big or small. 

Living through this period of time is very stressful. Many of us are worried about the health and safety of people we care about. Many of us are anxious about how this crisis has impacted our families’ incomes and stability. We’re worried about our kids’ education. We’re feeling trapped in a circumstance that has left us feeling like life isn’t in our hands—in our control. 

All of this is so heavy. It’s no wonder the small losses are the ones we can allow ourselves to feel and to process. 

I chatted with a friend last night, and she mentioned celebrating her granddaughter’s birthday. Her granddaughter is one of my daughter’s friends, and I don’t think we’ve ever missed her birthday. I felt sad, because without the text invite to a party, I didn’t remember when her birthday was. It’s silly, I suppose, but we lost another little life event. 

It feels a little silly to feel so much about small losses when thousands of families are mourning loved ones who died alone. It feels silly to feel so much about small losses when millions of us are experiencing the very serious stresses of unemployment, furloughs, decreased incomes and worries about how long we can continue on under current conditions. 

So, as always, I feel a tug of guilt about feeling so deeply about the little things. Maybe in some way, they are more tangible, because without them, time that is filled with so much mundanity and simply putting one foot in front of the other passes without punctuation—without doors being closed. 

The truth is most of us are unconnected to the thousands who have lost their lives and the millions who have been directly touched by this unseeable entity. All we can connect with are the its effects. 

Feeling the worry over day to day survival, responsibilities, loss of little things, and all the doors forever left ajar doesn’t diminish the big picture—the loss of so many people who were more than faceless numbers. 

I saw something on Facebook recently expressing the criticism that the media hasn’t done a memorial to the dead from this virus. 

My feeling is that because this death is continuous—the tragic event hasn’t ended. Maybe that’s another reason why so many of us are mourning small losses—because trying to mourn the big thing is impossible. The big thing is the biggest unpunctuated sentence of all. How can you properly mourn a loss that feels like a run-on sentence—a tragedy taking place in slow motion? 

We’ll find the rainbow after the storm, and see the sun again.

And so we feel what we know how to feel. I know how to be sad my daughter didn’t get a sweet last day of school with her teacher and classmates. I know how to be worried that this crisis is touching our family’s security. I know how to worry about loved ones who might not survive getting this virus. I know how to feel frustrated by not having the freedom and space I need to process all of these small things, and the biggest thing.