Can You Hear Me Now?
I saw two seconds of that video and I was transported right back to the moment my father died. On the ground. In full view of the public. Watching the life leave his body…helpless…I am forever changed.
George Floyd died on my father’s birthday.
I am overwhelmed by the grief of needlessly losing another black man in America. There is so much pain. I see it in the faces of every protestor I watch on TV and I hear it in the voices of my loved ones. I need you to know that I feel all of it. I carry the weight of it in my chest and it makes it hard to function. I know more than I should about the mothers losing their sons, the siblings losing their brothers, the children losing their fathers, the loss of income, the virus taking over 100,000 lives too soon.
It could have been me.
I survived COVID-19 in isolation at home. Watching the world protest from my recovery couch made me acutely aware that my very existence is an act of civil disobedience. My white mother and black father fell in love when just holding hands in public could offend someone. I am the product of their protest.
At my sickest, my father showed up in my fever-dreams. Between inhaler puffs, temperature readings, and remembering to eat, he reminded me I needed to hug my mother again. He reminded me that I know how to fight.
I never asked my dad about his experience as a Black man in America. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up discussing race, cultural history, and the African American experience. My father taught me about the poetry of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, the music of Miles Davis and Aretha Franklin. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a member of my family. My father and I could wax poetic about the philosophy of race but I never asked how he felt when we were pulled over because the officer saw a black man in a truck with a lighter-skinned girl and had to ensure my safety. I didn’t ask because I didn’t know to ask. I was a kid, the officer mentioned a fog light violation, and my dad kept his cool. There is no way I understood what I was in the middle of, but something about that interaction haunted me until I was old enough to process it.
I have lived inside the grief of having my family stripped away and the anguish of having no control. What I know is that if the pain is deep enough, if the despair is wide enough, if the suffering is sustained long enough, people will find new marks, take more aggressive action, drop an atom bomb in your game of monopoly.
Can you hear me now? Are you listening?
If your child was murdered over 526 seconds and any one second could have saved his life and no one did anything, what would you burn down?
I am crying for George Floyd, but I am also crying for my father and all he must have endured in his life. I am sad that in 2020 I still have to explain that making Black lives matter is the very least we should be asking for. I am confused by people who think this has anything to do with politics when it has everything to do with human rights. I am frustrated with those who think “this does not apply to me”. I am angry at people that are more upset about property damage than murder.
I am not okay. A good friend reminded me I can say that out loud. I AM NOT OKAY. People are literally dying in the streets! You have to take this personally!
I am having the most authentic and open-hearted conversations than ever before. I can no longer forgive silence or complacency. I don’t have time for small talk or platitudes, there is too much work to be done.
If you are feeling tired of this or sitting in judgment of the unrest you are witnessing, you may need to look at this in a different way. Life, for you, may have been great back in February. It would just be easier to forget this all happened, but you have to realize that, for so many people of color in this country, joblessness, grief, and wearing a mask to survive were a part of daily life, an everyday reality before COVID-19.
I stand with every single protestor. As I protest from home, I want you to know…
I see you. I hear you. I am listening and I am learning. I am ready to get to work.
Black Lives Matter.
Can you hear me now?