My heart aches for humanity, but not in a “white tears,” “white savior,” “we-all-just-need-to-come-together-and-sing-folk-songs” kind of way. My heart genuinely aches for my friends of every possible intersection (race, gender, sexual orientation, age, able-bodiedness, etc.), but particularly for my Black friends and family.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, had the unique experience of attending very diverse schools, learned at an early age how my experience of the world was very different from my friends who were not straight, white males and I lived through the 1992 riots. At that time, there was the collective anger, the mishandling by LAPD which sparked the riots and then the opportunists who took to strategic looting. I worked at a music store back then; Goodman Music was on LaBrea, just south of Wilshire Blvd.
On the second day of the riots, while several of us were working at the store, a crowd formed across the street. We could all feel it was time to leave and so we locked up and headed home. 15 minutes after I left, I got home, turned on the TV, and saw the store up in flames. Video footage later surfaced that showed a van entering the parking lot after we left, men shooting out the windows with guns, stealing what they wanted, and then allowing the crowd across the street to run in and grab things as a firebomb was thrown inside. Those thieves were not the same people who had been protesting the unjust acquittal of those police officers, they were calculated opportunists.
On May 31, 2020, protests in Los Angeles were again followed by opportunists looting and vandalizing property. My heart aches.
My heart aches because video footage has not made the world safer for Black people. If anything, it has highlighted the extent to which white people will go to explain away or attempt to find a more suitable explanation, for what has been happening for centuries. The blatant murder of George Floyd, where four police officers spent almost nine minutes suffocating this man to death and then went about their business, has been eclipsed by the armchair quarterbacking of white folks who shake their heads and their fists in the judgment of what the proper way to protest is. It doesn’t matter that when Kaepernick knelt, he was wrong, or that when Black Lives Matter originated and peacefully protested, they were wrong, or any number of other occurrences.
To be clear, I don’t hate white people, I don’t feel ashamed for being white and I don’t think all white people are bad. I do, however, believe in responsibility, accountability, and integrity. And most of all, I believe in compassion and empathy. Compassion and empathy do not have me sit in judgment, but rather, have me sit in the exploration of “why” and “what is needed?” Compassion and empathy have me seek out the long, historical list of injustices—murders, lynchings, rapes, incarcerations, bombings of Black communities, the Drug War, etc.—that help provide a deeper understanding of why the outrage. And, compassion and empathy show me how we, as white folks, have stolen from Black people and continue to do so.
We love Black art and culture, so we steal it. Even white supremacists have appropriated the music and language of Black people. We steal Black dignity—see Amy Cooper or any of the other Beckys, Karens, and Chads who have called the police on Black people just for existing. We steal Black lives—the never-ending list goes on and on and has existed way before hashtags. And, we steal Black activism.
Those that sit and judge how protests “should” occur, those who shake their heads disapprovingly at the messages that are being delivered and those who take advantage of a public stage for their own benefit, are all stealing, yet again, from the Black community. Many of us even steal and twist the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as yet another way to tell Black people, “You’re doing it wrong.” And the result is more Black lives lost, more appropriation of culture and a deeper divide, deeper grief, and greater anger.
What is the solution?
I mentioned before that the circumstances I grew up in have provided me with a framework to better understand another person’s lived experiences. It didn’t stop there for me though, as it was not enough. I have spent years working to increase my understanding, and frankly, if it weren’t for finding the mentors and teachers that I did, I may have been lost as well. The solution is education. The more I have sought out books, lectures, and courses—especially anti-racism courses—taught by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous & People of Color), the more I have been able to actually provide the needed support, which often comes in the way of simply listening and validating their experience. The more time I have spent focusing on listening vs. “having the answers,” the more effective I have been, both in discussions and in taking action.
I have seen many social media posts by white people asking “what can I do?” Unfortunately, more than a few of those posting also then pushed back when they were actually told what they could do. And this, again, comes back to listening and education. It is far too easy to put the onus of solving these issues on others. But the fact is, that many of our white ancestors had a hand in creating this…and if they didn’t, we all still benefit from it at this point. This doesn’t have to be a harsh truth, though. If you are reading this, it could be the beginning of real healing and real change. What can we do? We can begin getting an education in anti-racism.
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What’s Next? Talk with others. Take action.
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