i fully admit that this graphic is harsh.
i know that it to some of you, my readers and friends, it feels like it is too harsh.
and since i created it two days ago, when i have thought about posting it, i am sick to my stomach. but when i have thought about not posting it, i feel even more sick. and cowardly. so here it is.
i created it because i have many, many friends who are married to brown or black men, and many, many friends who have brown or black children
i created this graphic, because one of my friends posted on facebook yesterday that her white daughters asked her when they will have to start teaching their black brother (who is three) how to obey cops so he won’t get killed when there is a confrontation. and she felt like throwing up because she just typed that sentence.
the comments that followed ranged from sympathy to empathy to "maybe someone at our church can put on a class that will teach him how to react when/if confronted?" to "if you raise him right, you won't have to worry about it. right?"
and my response was "maybe all of us WHITE people should teach our WHITE friends and WHITE kids how to not kill black people. maybe that is the MUCH MORE IMPORTANT conversation than teaching black boys and men how to not get killed." and later, i amended my comment to not "maybe" - "CERTAINLY"
and i am going out on a limb here. those of you who know me, know my heart - and know that this is coming from a place of love. fierce love. love that will say the harsh things because it must accomplish a new understanding. love that will go out on a limb that may very well snap out from under me; i will land, maybe bruised, maybe bleeding; but i am willing to bleed.
there are many ways to be complicit in the killing of people. one of those ways is silence. another is choosing to believe the death is somehow deserved. another is doing the actual physical act of ending someone’s life.
i forced myself to watch portions of the video of George Floyd being murdered. he was dying in all the ways.
my heart felt like it was ripped from my chest and dragged over one of those box graters (you know the big metal ones that your mom or your grandma had for potatoes and carrots and cheese? - one of those graters that should mean love and good food and comfort). i had this distinct mental picture/feeling of my heart being dragged over one of those graters over and over again.
and before you tell me that’s not ALL cops – I KNOW it’s not. (there are cops that i appreciate and cops that i love)
and before you tell me that’s not ALL white people – i KNOW it’s not.
but it’s SOME
and it’s TOO MANY
and also, listen to yourself when you say – not ALL white people – does it sound as though it’s very few and certainly not you?
and then we’ll say something about black people being portrayed as criminals and thugs - and listen to yourself when you say – not ALL black people – does it sound as though it’s very many and you are just saying this to sound not-racist?
George Floyd should not be dead
that miserable excuse for a cop knew when Mr. Floyd stopped breathing. he KNEW.
i have taken care of people on their death beds – you KNOW when someone stops breathing. you KNOW.
and he stayed on his neck.
in the eight minutes of being asphyxiated, Mr. Floyd hardly struggled.
until he couldn’t struggle. because he had no more breath. because he was dying.
white people, white friends, we NEED to become uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that we can help to change this.
i don't want to see one more hashtag of justice for a person after they are wrongfully killed.
i want to know that my friends and their friends and their friends and their friends and all the people in this country we all want to be so great, i want to know that they can all go for a walk and sleep and play video games and drive and report and bird and have a picnic and put gas in their wife's car and play with nerf guns and drive with a tail light out and jog and walk through the skeleton of a house under construction and ask for help and leave a party and breathe and live without being harassed because they look "like somebody" or like they are "up to no good" or are "intimidating" or any number of "reasons" given.
i don't want to read or hear one more justification - well, they shouldn't have been there, done that, looked like that, done these things in their past, as though any wrong choice should be a death sentence, as though any "wrong" look should be a death sentence.
another friend, who is white, who has a biracial husband, two biracial children, one hispanic son, and one black son, wrote the following: if you are a white person who believes you are not racist because you "have black friends" (or a spouse or kids or family members) or you "don't see color", PLEASE learn the difference between prejudice and structural racism. prejudice is an individual disposition against someone for an arbitrary reason. racism is a system on which our country was built, and on which white people still reap benefits that people of color do not. it does not have to do mainly with personal choices. it has to do with how the systems are set up.
you can be a very good person and still (unknowingly - until you know) benefit from the racism in the systems in this country. please start doing some reading, listening, and learning. read the people that you don't initially agree with. read the people you do agree with. work on what makes you agree and disagree. sit with it. read people who don't look like you. read people who do look like you who have different experience than you. sit with what you have read.
i have been expanding my reading over many years. i have been expanding my listening over many years. i am asking God for discernment and trusting His leading as i read, as i engage, as i learn, as i love, as i write.
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three years ago, i wrote the following:
and now, i need someone to explain to me how it is OK for a white cop to kneel on a black man’s neck until he is dead,
but it is not OK for a black man to kneel on a football field in protest of that murder.
and you'll tell me that it wasn't OK for the white cop to kneel on the black man's neck until he was dead,
but his partners didn't stop him,
and
the only explanation i see is that whiteness loudly does whatever it wants and any other color does not get to have a voice.
and the same person who called those who kneel "sons of bitches"
called the self-proclaimed white supremacists and white nationalists in charlottesville "very fine people"
and now he has said that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" (link to why that phrase matters so very much)
these statements are at best a dissonance, at worst a condemnation of one voice and an endorsement of another.
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for right now, i think this gives enough explanation for my graphic.
it is a start.
i love you, my friends, my family, my readers. i want to learn alongside you.
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go gently (but sometimes, go stomping and roaring), love fiercely, be wonderful.