As a parent, there is nothing more heart-rending than when your child calls out for you in fear. Whether it's a bad dream or because they've been hurt or scared... the response is instinctual. Primal. Your baby needs you, and your body reacts.
During the nearly 9 minutes George Floyd endured with a monster kneeling on his neck, between making him aware that he could not breathe, Mr. Floyd cried out, "Mama... mama..."
He received none of the sought-out comfort. Not from his sweet mother. Certainly not from the murderer who snuffed out his life.
"My God, my God... why hast thou forsaken me?"
In the wake of Mr. Floyd's death, there have been huge, sustained protests against police brutality toward people of color, of course, but also against the intentional, generations-long policies and systems that were designed to keep black people from gaining "too much" ground, "too much" freedom, "too much" success, "too much" of the American Dream.
While we can all certainly intellectually assent to the fact that black lives matter, how things play out in daily life in the USA often flies in the face of that ideal. And when people deny that there is systemic racism baked into our society, whether it's in education, law enforcement, medicine, employment, real estate, or really anything, there are a few reasons as to why: 1) They are so insulated within their privilege that they just don't ever have to see it. 2) They don't want to see it, so they don't look too closely. They tend to jump straight to the defensive when the concept of racism is presented. 3) They sense it, but they're "safe" and don't care to be made uncomfortable.
That's it, really. There's not an option where "they just have a different take on what is happening and maybe they have a point" is valid. It's just not. To see our nation's Attorney General state that he doesn't believe there is systemic racism in our policing bodies is an absolute affront to reality, and it gaslights those who are suffering.
Lots of us white folks don't like the phrase "white privilege" because... I'm not sure why? I think people who are poor resent the idea that they somehow have a leg up on anyone. And then folks who are financially stable, having moved upward from perhaps the lower middle class to the upper middle class, look back on the work that they have done in their lives and resent the idea that it wasn't solely their work ethic and smart financial decisions that got them to where they are.
However, I see white privilege at work in my life on both sides of my family, going back generations.
On one side of my family, several generations back, my forebears owned slaves. So whatever wealth they had was generated by black people working under the threat of violence or death. When the slaves were freed, many stayed on for pay... but they never received back pay. The years of hard labor, separated families, fear of the overseers, indoctrination, disrespect, and oppression stayed with them as they continued that same labor, still enriching the white family who owned property while themselves subsisting on whatever wages they could garner... because what true choice did they have?
On the other side of my family, a little more recently, my grandfather served in the Navy as a barber during WWII. When he returned home, he took advantage of the GI Bill to earn his real estate license and became an agent, then a broker. He worked hard, did his own maintenance, "flipped" houses before it was cool, let people get away with paying much too little because he felt he had a responsibility to house people who needed a house, wouldn't evict renters if they were military, owned several businesses, and ended up saving enough both to house him in a top-notch Alzheimer's facility the last few years of his life, and for my grandma to live in an all-inclusive independent living center for several years. Then they left some money to their living child and all of their grandchildren.
An equally smart, equally driven, equally hard-working black man might have served with my grandpa and come home to try to get an education using the GI Bill only to find that the few colleges he was allowed to attend (Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs) were full, having reached capacity as many veterans of color took advantage of this military benefit.
So this hypothetical man takes whatever job he can get, works hard, maybe works his way up in the company and is earning a good living. But when he goes to buy a house? Redlining. There are neighborhoods in which he cannot buy. If he decides to buy in a "black" neighborhood, then very few banks are willing to loan money in those areas. Most people at the time were at the mercy of sellers who would put black people into houses on a "rent to own" basis. The terms were that the black person would be paying toward owning the house, and had to make all of the repairs and things associated with home ownership. But if they were late on the payment ONE TIME, the owner could evict them and they had nothing to show for maybe a decade or more of paying on a property in a set-up designed to bilk vulnerable folks out of their money.
Then what would they do? Sue the owner? Who would take the case? Who would side with them in civil court?
Property ownership is the main way that wealth is passed down through generations, and people of color have been intentionally denied this way into the middle class for the entirety of our country's history.
Even now, a white person making $100,000 a year is likely to live in a neighborhood where the average salary is about $100,000 a year.
The average black person making $100,000 a year is most likely to live in a neighborhood where the average salary is $30,000 per year. Which property do you think will appreciate faster? Whose investment is going to pay off if they ever sell?
Throughout my life, my financial fortunes have fluctuated. When I was growing up, we didn't have much money at all. My parents' margins became more comfortable as I got older, due a lot to frugality, to a willingness to live a pretty simple life regardless of income. Then I got married and was pretty poor again. As we got older, things got easier. When I was pregnant with D, I was making pretty good money. Then I quit and we were once again right on the edge. When I got divorced, I qualified for SNAP benefits for about six months (then they decided they'd made a mistake and I was too "rich" because I had enough money to buy an iPad... which, if I'd bought, would have then qualified me to get back onto SNAP benefits). When James and I got married, I was back on the upward mobility track.
I don't take any of this for granted. I know people who have come before me have worked hard and made good decisions. I also know it can be taken away at any time. But the fact is that I have this ability to move about, up and down the ladder, in a way that black folks do not.
While white people can move in either direction on the financial scale,
black people tend to slide backward. The big pieces of that are generational wealth, access to education and jobs, and the kind of social capital that white people have in that we can get public officials to do stuff for us pretty easily.
So, there's this from the beginning of our country. It's intentional. Then on top of these troublesome barriers that exist to this day is the scarier reality that black folks, and especially black men, can be killed by white folks, and specifically police, with little to no ramifications. It's dehumanizing. It's a human rights violation. It's criminal, even if charges are never brought. And, honestly, without the saturation of the market by portable cameras, many of these things would not be brought to light or addressed.
I cannot understand white people who can see all of this and not be moved. Not recognize our complicity. Not want to do whatever we can to address these injustices once and for all. Our nation will never heal until we do.
Did you know that one year after the Salem "Witch" Trials, the survivors were paid reparations?
I'd ask why we weren't as quick to address the ravages of slavery, but I already know the answer.
Until our nation's leaders and all citizens acknowledge and say out loud, "Slavery was a horrible atrocity in our country's history, and we are sorry," then back it up with cash, social programs, free education, or whatever we can come up with to repair the damage, we're going to run into this unrest over and over again.
Part of that involves completely dismantling the policing system and starting over with something more akin to peace officers, justices of the peace, serve-y/protect-y stuff.
Maybe it involves having white people liquidate everything they own and give half to an
American Descendant of Slavery. That is radical, but I don't think it's unfair.
What is unfair is continuing to prop up a society that has created these classes of people, and that does everything it can to keep these classes right where they are. Even if every individual person in the USA were completely free from racism (which is impossible), the structures have to change.
If we'd acknowledged our wrongness and given freed slaves what was promised to them, that likely would have drastically changed the world we live in today. But freed slaves were never given the land they were promised, that one thing that could have started the wealth-building ball rolling for them. There were Jim Crow laws.
Social welfare programs designed to enrich white people. Continued
employment discrimination.
NOW, what has snowballed is the tension, the anger, the mistrust, the loss of hope. There are millions more people now to whom we owe a debt than there were if we'd acknowledged our failings and attempted to make recompense.
Our hens are coming home to roost, and hopefully we can use this opportunity to finally fix the damage we have done.
And on a personal note, I grieve for black families constantly. I am so sad for the immediate losses of the Floyd, Taylor, and Aubrey families. But I'm sad for everyone who has to have The Talk with their children, boys especially. For everyone who fears death when they see flashing lights. For people who have to be on their best behavior at all moments or risk becoming targets. I'm so sorry. I do not see how you do it. I will do everything I can to fight for your rights.
