Another black man is dead.
I’m at my kitchen table, very much alive.
It’s been a weird run since 2016. After the election, something in me flipped and I started taking everything really fucking personally. I blame the 45th Adminstration for a lot of it. My 2017 opened with a run to the airport to join everyone protesting against the racist detention of immigrants. It went downhill from there.
I want to tell you four things I did in recent memory. I’m telling you these things not because I want you to think I’m some kind of hero. I’m not. I’m telling you these things because they were personal, uncomfortable, and me doing these things is not enough.
Doing these things has also been very, very neccessary.
George Floyd is dead because he was black.
If you’re white, speaking up won’t kill you.
Here are the four things:
I called out a “leader” in my community for posting an airport selfie with Steve Bannon, the architect behind the travel ban that went in place right after the 45th president took office. People were awful to me about this. They accused me of violating that person’s privacy by reposting the photo. They missed the entire point that a guy who declares himself a leader in travel thought it amusing to get a selfie with a figure who wanted to limit travel for people based on their country of origin. A number of people I thought were good liberals and progressives took the guy’s side, and told me what I did was wrong. They defended the guy’s actions as no big deal or none of my business. Speaking up when our people normalize white supremacy is everyone’s business.
It was awful for me, awful. Also, I’m not dead.
I called out a friend for posting a racist joke on Facebook. “We can’t be friends on Facebook if you’re going to try to censor my Facebook posts,” he said. Not the point. We can’t be friends if you think racist jokes are okay. We had this interaction on a street corner in downtown Seattle. We’re not friends anymore. It hurt. But this guy, who claimed to serious progressive, thought casual racism was okay. Speaking up when our people trivialize casual racism is everyone’s job.
It was awful for me, awful. Also, I’m not dead.
I quit a job when the hiring manager asked me to keep information about my wages from the woman they wanted me to work with. She was not going to be paid, I was, and they didn’t want me to tell her. “Absolutely not,” I said, “and now, I have to quit working for you because you asked me to do this.” I left money sitting on the table, good money, because this employer’s practices were completely unethical. I’m furloughed right now, I’ve been thinking about that money. The guy who asked me to do this is a really nice guy, absolutely a liberal. Even though I’m a woman, this felt sexist as hell. Speaking up when our people are sexist and deny wage equity is everyone’s job.
It was awful for me, awful. Also, I’m not dead.
I asked a guy if he was an epidemiologist. There’s a narrow stair climb near my house, ten flights between two rows of tall hedges. People use it more now that all the gyms are closed. The guy coming down the stairs said I could go ahead and pass him; I told him I wasn’t comfortable in a that narrow space without a mask. He started to lecture me on the science of disease transmission. “Oh, are you an epidemiolgist?” I asked. He was a tall, super fit white guy, we were alone in this narrow space. His voice got louder, more heated. Loud talking, yelling, increases the rate of transmission, according to more recent science. “I’m not comfortable with the risks,” I said. I don’t know this guy, but given his justifcation — that he reads widely (as do I, asshole) — I’m going to assume he’s a good liberal. His behavior felt sexist and anti-science and entitled. Speaking up when our people behave badly in public spaces is everyone’s job.
It was awful for me, awful. Also, I’m not dead.
I’ve done some other stuff, too. I postered immigrant neighborhoods with Know Your Rights flyers in multiple langauges. I told an entire conference room at Missouri tourism event that it sure seemed like they had a problem with racism and maybe that was, you know, bad for tourism at the very least. I took in an undocumented immigrant who was detained by ICE. I’ve done a fair bit of showing up and awkward not shutting up and none of it has been fun.
It’s all been awful, every time. Also, I’m not dead.
I hate that terms like “micro-agression” and “intersectionality” now have deep personal meaning in my life. I don’t like academic language; I think it’s alienating. I hate that I am beginning to truly grasp how deeply ingrained racism and sexism and Islamaphobia and other “isms” are, even in minorities. I hate that I say things like “Man, the structures of power have us so held down that we can’t even see that our actions enable it, we can’t even see that we’re living in some kind of Stockholm syndrome with capitalism, yo.” I hate being that white person who’s all, “Yeah, yeah, the whole I Have a Dream thing is inspirational, but have you read Letters from a Birmingham Jail?” I hate the despair that these ideas and experiences leave me feeling. I also hate that I’m the asshole in these stories. I’m the one who called people out, sometimes in a very public way, for their bad behavior.
It doesn’t feel heroic. It’s scary and hard.
It’s been awful for me, awful. Also, I’m not dead.
I don’t feel like I’ve gained power from speaking up. I’m not sure anything has changed because I’ve used my voice. There’s no way to know, really, if that guy on the stairs is going to be better to people around him or if he just uses that story as a punchline. “This bitch asked me if I was an epidemiologist! Can you believe that shit?”
One of the many awful things about living in the era of Corona is that our worlds have collapsed; they’ve become very, very small. It’s what we’ve got, though. It’s what we’ve always had. Ourselves. The man in the mirror. “Be the change…” and all that overly sanitized sound bite crap.
I am never going to change the mind of some confederate flag waving red hat dude. It’s not going to happen. There’s no point in that conversation. That guy hates me from the get go because I’m a woman, I’m Jewish, and I’m a liberal.
But lots of good lefties are just letting shit happen by not speaking up to each other. We’re letting each other off the hook because it’s none of our business or it’s just a joke or whatever excuse we’re giving ourselves for overlooking bad behavior.
We’re not at risk.
We’re still alive.
George Floyd.
Sandra Bland.
Trayvon Martin.
Breonna Taylor.
Eric Garner.
Ahmed Aubrey.
Too many black people, murdered for being black.
Talk to your people.
I’ve done it.
It’s been awful for me, awful.
Also, I’m not dead.
<3 Thank you
What has to happen for white people to get it? I’ve long thought there’s zero chance unless some catastrophic, motivating event comes along and a majority finally have their “Black Like Me” moment. POC who complain, stand up or riot are seen as sour grapes and never taken seriously enough to change attitudes and law.