The current outrage over the killing — no, lynching — of George Floyd has a lot of white people scratching their heads and wondering, “How is this allowed to go on?”
But for most black folks, as heinous as the crime was, it wasn’t anything new. We’ve been witnessing and enduring this kind of abuse for centuries. The song Strange Fruit was about lynching. Peaceful protests led and inspired by MLK often ended in violence and bloodshed. And in the last 10 years thanks to technology, we’ve had front-row seats for the abuse and murders of dozens of people of color.
We witnessed Sandra Bland being pulled from her car and tazed (though like a bad television show, her death occurred off camera). We saw Tamir Rice gunned down in a park. Walter Scott was shot in the back running away. We watched Eric Garner, Philando Castille, Ahmaud Arbery, and now George Floyd’s last few moments on this earth. To name a few.
Those are the macro aggressions that occur. Although they are obviously horrible and rage-inducing, they are actually the outliers, the gasoline added to the fire. If you really want to know what’s fueling the rage of black people, you need to know about the microaggressions black people experience every day. But before I delve into that …
An Apology
White people, we owe you an apology. We should have never let you think things were okay for so long. If we’re being real, things have never been okay. But it was easier to turn a blind eye toward the problems and continue to live. As black folks, we need to acknowledge that for too long we let racists and bigots off the hook too easily.
When one of our “friends” made an off-color joke, we shouldn’t have fake laughed, smiled, and let it go.
When the vendor at the Italian Fest ignored us in favor of white patrons, we should have either spoken up or got out of line, not stood there patiently until the only one left to serve was us.
When we spoke up about an issue and a white friend blew it off, we should not have dropped the issue in an attempt to keep a friendship intact.
When our white friends (or even better their parents) called us one of the “good ones,” or proudly proclaimed we were “a credit to our race,” we should have shown them what black pride really looked like instead or croaking out “thank you.”
Maybe, just maybe, if we had focused less on keeping the status quo and more on correction and detailing what we would and would not stand for, our brothers and sisters wouldn’t still be dying at the hands of systemic racism.
Hard as Hell.
Because we worked so hard to make being black look so easy, no one wants to believe it’s hard.
But it is hard.
Hard as hell.
It’s hard when you go into a department store and after security is done tailing you, you hand the cashier your credit card, and she asks to see your ID, even though the white woman who checked out ahead of you didn’t have to show hers.
It’s hard when a police officer follows you into an upper-middle-class neighborhood, and when you pull into a driveway, he turns on his lights and asks why you’re parked there. Then when you tell him it’s your house, you still have to produce your ID and a utility bill.
It’s hard to keep your fear in check when your kid is 15 minutes late coming home, and you don’t know whether it’s because she’s stuck at work, lost track of time, or her civil rights are being violated.
It’s hard to look at the males in your life and warn them about wearing dark hoodies and putting their hands in their pockets when they’re walking around the neighborhood.
It’s not easy being black in this country, and we never should have tried to make it look that way. That was our fault.
But white people, now you know. You’ve seen it for yourself. We can point it out, march in protest, and scream until we’re purple, but you have to change it.
So, which it is? Are you okay with black people being executed on a seemingly daily basis, or have you seen enough to take a stand and end it? Or do you still need more proof? Because I guarantee there will be more proof.
But from now on, the only easy things you’ll get from us is your ability to see it and hear our outrage about it.
