Choosing something

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Dr. Seuss

I bought a Black Lives Matter t-shirt this week.

I used to think it was only extremists who wore shirts like that. I used to think people who wore those shirts were anti-police. I used to think Colin Kaepernick was unpatriotic by kneeling.

But then I started reading about the lives of Black people. I learned about implicit bias. I learned about systemic oppression. The implications of the GI Bill blew my mind. I watched as my Black friends had to choose their words more carefully than I did. I read the posts of my friends of color who experienced first hand profiling and discrimination by people who looked just like me.

And I started to get embarrassed. Ashamed of all the societal privilege that my white middle class upbringing had kept me from seeing.

I have several friends who are police officers or the spouses of police officers. The bravery it takes to serve the world in that role (as either the officer or the spouse) humbles me. They face incomprehensible dangers every single day. I would hate it if my words ever conveyed anything but respect for this calling. But there are some in uniform whose twisted view of their melanin supremacy manifests as abuse – with badges as weapons. The impact of this skewed world view has gone so far as to result in a state curriculum mandate requiring lessons for all teens on how to behave when being pulled over by a squad car. Let’s be honest, the point of this mandate is not for my white daughters. It has led to headline after headline of Black humans who have died violently at the hands of those who have sworn to protect.

A few years ago, I am embarrassed to say, I was a voice in the chorus of those saying things like, “there are two sides to every story.” But the examples now piled like a mountain of revealed bias are beyond coincidence. A few from the too-long list…

Eric Garner had just broken up a fight, according to witness testimony.

Ezell Ford was walking in his neighborhood.

Tanisha Anderson was having a bad mental health episode, and her brother called 911.

Tamir Rice was playing in a park.

Walter Scott was going to an auto-parts store.

Bettie Jones answered the door to let Chicago police officers in to help her upstairs neighbor,who had called 911 in order to resolve a domestic dispute.

Philando Castile was driving home from dinner with his girlfriend.

It’s unlikely that any officer leaves home with conscious intent to kill people of color, however the lack of something…. whether it’s preparation, protocols, empathy, or accountability to society… has led that to be startlingly common. And while the current riots were sparked by the inhumane treatment of George Floyd, the world is not short on non police-related examples of race-based misdeeds. In schools. In department stores. In courts. In hospitals. In government. In real estate. In virtually every walk of life, people of color live a different reality than I do. For those lacking understanding about the current anger and apparent recklessness, I’d ask you to consider spending every day of your life in the shoes of a dark-skinned individual and then reconsider how angry and reckless you might begin to feel.

I may lose the respect of some of my friends who read this or see me in the t-shirt I intend to wear proudly and boldly in my suburban neighborhood. I may provoke emotion of my readers who misread this as disrespect for first responders. I hope not. But if so, it’s a price I’ll gladly pay for the discomfort and reconciliation our nation desperately needs and won’t ever experience through silence. Whatever non-silence looks like to you, I implore you to do it. From a simple post on a social media platform that joins the chorus of social pressure for change to any number of self-educating/advocating strategies you choose. But please, just choose something.

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’” Martin Luther King, Letter From a Birmingham Jail