Monday, June 1, 2020

Black lives matter.

Black lives matter.

Yesterday a POC writer friend of mine spoke out on social media about how angry she felt toward white writers who'd written books featuring black characters yet remained silent now.  I wrote Jefferson's Sons, so this included me.

I replied with this: I’ve given financial support to bond funds and POC, especially black authors, but I’ve done so privately. I’ve reposted and retweeted posts from black people. Right now I’m trying to keep my mouth shut and my mind, ears, and heart open. No one needs my narrative right now. Perhaps, though, I do need to affirm: BLACK LIVES MATTER.

The writer friend responded that she thought I did need to affirm it. That while I didn't need to center any story on myself, I needed to stand up for black people. So I put it up on her post, and on twitter, and I'm saying it here.

Black lives matter.

Do not come at me with All lives matter. 'All lives matter' is a way of silencing protest, of saying that these black people don't get to stand out, a way of implying that it's no worse, no harder, to be black in America than it is to be white, when patently that isn't true.

Do not tell me you don't see color. All that says is that you're so accustomed to your white privilege you don't see how your whiteness benefits you.

Black lives matter.

A white childhood friend of mine just posted the story of how, when she was in high school, she tried to pay for something at a store with a counterfeit bill. The clerk noticed and called police, who questioned my friend--now sobbing--then let her go, because they believed her when she said she didn't know the bill was fake and didn't know who'd passed it to her.

George Floyd was murdered for paying for something with a counterfeit bill.

I don't have any idea whether or not he knew it was counterfeit. I don't remotely care. 

Murdered. Over a counterfeit twenty.

Black lives matter.

I watched part of the video of his murder one time. I'll never watch it again. It was filmed by a 17-year-old black girl. Can you imagine being that child? Being that brave, doing something that awful? 

Black lives matter.

In many, perhaps most, of the protests taking place around the country, black people are protesting peacefully; the violence and looting come from white people. If it had been my husband who had a man kneel on his neck for nearly nine minutes, while he died, I might not be protesting peacefully. If it had been my son. I've never needed to worry about that. My family is white. It wouldn't happen to a white man in my country.

Black lives matter.

One of my relatives in the generation above mine said to me, the other day, "I realized I have no idea what it means to be a black man in this country."

Black lives matter.

Once when my children were small, both still in car seats, I was driving them home from school and blew right past another elementary school without slowing down. I was going 35 mph, not 80, but the speed limit there is 10, and there are always police supervising. I saw the blue lights flashing behind me and knew immediately what I'd done. I pulled to the side of the road. My children, frightened, began to cry. I reassured them that while I'd done something wrong, I wouldn't be arrested. I would be given a ticket and I'd have to pay a fine. "The worst thing that's going to happen," I said, "Is that Mrs. B--- [our neighbor] is going to drive past us in a minute, and honk and laugh and wave."

That's exactly what happened. That's all that happened. And I knew that's how it would be. There's a definition of white privilege, if you're still looking for one.

Black lives matter.

I have spent a few days where all I did online was retweet and repost statements made by my black friends. It's taken me a long time to learn that sometimes I need to shut up, listen, and learn, but I'm pretty sure the last few days have been one of those times. This morning a local friend, white, asked me if I wanted to join her white reading and accountability group--biweekly zoom meetings devoted to learning how to be actively anti-racist without requiring black people to do the work of teaching us right now. I'm all in. 

I've ordered books: Waking Up White, The Hidden Rules of Race, Choke Hold, The Color of Law. I've also ordered a trio of YA debut novels by black women that publish tomorrow: You Should See Me in a Crown, A Song Below Water, and A Song of Wraiths and Ruin. I looked them up; they all got terrific reviews, and sound fantastic.

I donated a bit of money to the bail funds of Chicago and Philadelphia, two cities important to my family. Cash bail is a social injustice--you can read about why--and protesters get held for bail as a way of discouraging them. I'm not protesting myself--I'm still protecting my fragile lungs in strict isolation--but this is my way of supporting those who do.

Black lives matter.

I hope that every white person reading this will take some concrete anti-racist action. I hope that every white person reading this will shut up, listen, and learn. And then do something.

Because black lives matter. The end.

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