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.
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| 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.
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