Every year on Memorial Day, people celebrate with barbecues and bathing suits, but of course, 2020 was no ordinary year. Memorial Day 2020 will be remembered as the beginning of the summer of racial reckoning. At least, this is my hope.
In the midst of the pandemic, just when we were getting used to the idea of sheltering in place, Memorial Day 2020 started with one of the ultimate Karenisms — Ms. Amy Cooper weaponized (unrelated) Mr. Christian Cooper’s blackness because he dared to call her out for walking her dog unleashed.
Scowling at our screens, we watched her get in his face and threaten to call 911, making special note that she would let them know that an “African-American man was threatening her.” He was not. And then she actually placed the call, and complete with all of the “white woman’s tears” that she could muster, she made her plea.
Whether this is how the system was designed, I still feel shocked by the calculations that she made to risk his life over her feelings of entitlement. I know racism is real, yet I remain hopeful and committed to change.
If anything could challenge hope
No matter how many times people tell me that I shouldn’t be surprised by racism, George Floyd’s murder was too much. Watching Derek Chauvin strangle a black man in a slow and controlled manner, with an everyday facial expression, unconcerned about the consequences, performing his job in the same way he had for nineteen years still feels inconceivable.
It seems as if it takes a special kind of hatred to kill someone up close. When you suffocate someone slowly, it’s as if there’s a vendetta being played out. And it’s hard to imagine that this type of hatred is isolated to one “bad actor.”
And then, for Chauvin to have the audacity to go to court and assert his innocence when the world saw the whole affair on camera felt like the ultimate slap in the face. I have not been able to articulate this since the trial.
Everyone is entitled to his or her day in court. But the collective holding of our breaths as we awaited validation of the crime that we all witnessed was a dehumanizing exercise. The answer to the question of whether and how much Black Lives Matter (to the justice system of the United States of America) hung in the balance for hours as we awaited the jury’s verdict. I suppose that in consolation, our eyes were not deceived.
No choice but to create change, but I’m tired
“We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union…” begins the preamble of the constitution of the United States of America.
We, the BIPOC, find ourselves here, citizens saddled with the obligation to justify our humanity. That damn preamble wasn’t written for me.
My African ancestors were kidnapped, incarcerated, trafficked, “freed,” excluded from economic equity, and then expected to pull up from their bootstraps, embrace newfound “equality,” with gratitude, and pledge allegiance.
My Japanese ancestors were deported and/or incarcerated, released from custody, and then expected to pull up from their bootstraps, perform as the “model minority,” and pledge allegiance.
It’s exhausting. I’m not the first nor the last to say this, I know. I want to hold onto hope, and I have no other choice.
Call it a tipping point, a moment of truth, an inflection point
We’re beyond warnings. In one year, we’ve experienced more than we could have imagined. COVID, White supremacists storming the Capitol carrying confederate flags, mass shootings, rampant homelessness, record-breaking wealth inequality, accelerating climate change, and police brutality. It’s too much.
COVID facilitated the environment for us to witness this on display. We became a captive audience, whether or not we wanted to see it. Deniers can continue to deny these facts, but the shit is hitting the fan, and we are breaking.
The rest of us have to choose. Be part of the problem, or be part of the solution.
And what about Amy?
Memorial Day 2021. The vaccinated will congregate. Families will unite, people will go to beaches. Some of us will hold our breath, hoping that the COVID numbers don’t escalate too much.
If Memorial Day is a day to remember those whose lives have been lost in service, let us remember the fallen George Floyd. He didn’t enter into a battle willingly and wasn’t enlisted in our armed forces, yet his death is symbolic in the fight for equity for all Americans.
And Amy Cooper? She lost her job and her dog. But her story ended up like the news of Farrah Fawcett’s death. It was surprising, but Michael Jackson’s death overshadowed it on the same day.
Call her lucky, maybe. She was given the ultimate mercy in that Mr. Cooper didn’t press charges. What a nice man. I don’t know many people that would have done the same.
I hope that Amy learned from her experience, and (paraphrasing Maya Angelou) now that she knows better, she does better. I also hope that this Memorial Day brings new memories. I feel that my hope is ambitious, but at this moment, hope is all I have.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Clay Banks on Unsplash
