The ink barely dried from writing my thoughts on Ahmaud Arbery, when Breonna Taylor was lynched.
I hadn’t even begun drafting those thoughts before it happened to George Floyd. And almost Christian Cooper.
I try to be selective, measured, and strategic when it comes to speaking up, while at the same time never wanting to be silent. Elie Wiesel’s and Desmond Tutu’s words have followed me since middle school, in situations of injustice, neutrality and silence put you on the side of the oppressor.
At the same time, it’s hard to feel like you keep writing the same things over and over, only to see the same terrible headlines over and over.
What I try to remember is a conversation I had with a relative shortly after Mike Brown’s death. I was talking to a family member, and, I won’t repeat some of the comments I heard, but I was so, so surprised and bothered by the racist ideas I heard. I had a similar encounter with someone in my spiritual community. I felt anger and disgust and extreme disappointment to hear these things from people I loved and wanted to look up to.
This week, I heard one of those people express outrage over George Floyd’s killing, acknowledging that there’s nothing that could justify the knee to his neck that killed him. I saw posts from the other person, sharing the sentiment that, without having lived the black experience they’d never fully understand the trauma, but they could do their best.
Somewhere in between each told me “I see how you are, seeing all people as people. That’s had an effect on me.” Hearing that validated every challenging conversation and post I struggled through.
To be honest, I struggle with sharing this story. I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t have my own work to do. I also don’t want to make it seem like antiracist work is as easy as the movie Crash makes it look, where it just takes one string of well articulated words. More often than not, it looks like staying true to your convictions even when it feels like they get you nowhere. And I mostly think back to these experiences as my own reminder to keep speaking up. It actually does matter.
