Dr. Rosalyn | On the Shoulders of Giants: Quotes to Lead My Thoughts

I don't use this space as much as I could and I may or may not change that fact but I wanted to share something slightly more cohesive than a social media rant.  In the last few weeks I've seen the world catch fire and it made me smile--ruefully but smile all the same.  See we have been saying, we being Black people trying to live our Black lives, for years that until the rest of the world was as outraged by what continues to happen to Black people living their Black lives nothing would change.  I cannot tell you why George Floyd's death was the match that sparked the eruption but I know it was finally sparked.  Worldwide protests have emerged in the wake of his death, potentially putting all of us in harm's way because there is also an unchecked pandemic happening, but people have felt the rage and need to voice their opinion loudly and publicly were worth the health risk.  I appreciate them because right now I cannot join them.

"I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Fannie Lou Hamer

I could say that my inability to join them is solely because I want to reduce the risk to my mother but I just don't have the energy to be in the midst of what is happening right now without unleashing unchecked rage.  Why on earth wasn't our word enough before?  Why on earth did a man have to literally die in front of your eyes with multiple people contradicting the "official police narrative" before you said enough?  Why on earth are some of you still so willing to question the method of protest instead of the reason behind the protest?  When Black Tulsa was literally raised to the ground and bombed out of existence why wasn't that enough.  When Rosewood lost large swaths of its Black residents based on a lie wasn't it enough.  When Emmett Till was murdered based on a lie, that everyone suspected was a lie at the time, why wasn't that the point you turned to your neighbors and said we can't let this go.  When you found postcards of lynchings, granddad's Klan robe, Nazi memorabilia, or just racist material in the belongings of your relatives what allowed you to think it was in the distant past and not the present.  When reports of white supremacist gangs infiltrating police departments or when the police mocked the deaths of Black men and women were you able to say "well if they just complied" instead of saying what in the world happened to the police.  The list of Black men, women, and children who have died at the hands of the police in the last twenty years is exhausting so I won't detail it here but know that I am tired.  And before you start I know that others die at the hands of the police too and you should be equally outraged by the deaf man who was shot within a minute of existing his car because the officers mistakenly thought he had led them on a chase when he just couldn't hear them.  Or the young white man with mental health issues that was murdered in his front yard because he couldn't comply fast enough.  Or the young woman who just died protesting all of this because they tear gassed her, triggering an asthma attack that ultimately took her life.  None of them should be dead right now.  Literally not a single one of them.  Bad policing isn't a Black and White issue--it's a public health issue. 

"To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time."

James Baldwin

Part of why I miss my dad so much is we could talk about these things and he could help me find hope in the wake of a situation I doubted would ever change.  He was a career Air Force man who then switched gears to teaching as he retired from the military.  People on base or who had served with him always showed him respect when I was with him which was great to see.  I didn't realize he was important at 6, I just knew everyone had to salute him which I thought was pretty cool.  However, as I got older I saw that as important as he might have been people still were covertly racist towards him and by default us.  When he was teaching me to drive, I was asked to take him on base in his car of course and when I get to the gate the guard is giving me some crap because he doesn't see my dad.  As soon as he did, the tone changed and we were sent on through the gate.  My dad drove on the way off base and the looks exchanged were priceless.  I'm not sure what dad did in the moments after we left the base but I don't know that I ever saw that dude on guard duty again.  My father has been gone for nearly 20 years and honestly the only real change that has taken place is we have better video evidence to support our myriad of tales.  Notice I said better video because we had video when Rodney King was beaten so badly they weren't sure he was going to survive.  And yes those police were arrested and there was a brief moment when we all "knew" that at least justice would happen here because there was clearly proof that the people accused of the crime would be convicted.  The rage that blew over that time was because Black people saw a group of White people watch one of us suffer on camera and sent each of the accused home.  If we can't get justice then we would never ever get it.  That anguish led to riots and the very unfortunate beating of Reginald Denny.  Only one of the suspects really served time in that case and the others were either found not guilty or convicted of a reduced charge.  In that moment, no one won but the feeling was one of immense loss all the same.  Even when video evidence contradicting the stories of officers in police involved shootings very few are charged with any crime and a minuscule amount of those charged are convicted.  Look it up, you'll be done faster than you think in reading about the convictions.  Despite knowing all of that.  Despite our lived experiences.  Despite people questioning those lived experiences.  Black people as a unit still have to get up daily and try to love our Black lives hoping that our friends and family aren't mourning us unexpectedly because of what should be a low key and low threat of death interaction.

“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”

“I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment.”

“Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.”

Malcolm X

I read the Autobiography of Malcolm X in summer school.  I'm sure some of you are wondering what were you doing in summer school.  I being an enterprising 10th grader figured out I really only needed on class senior year.  At the time, you would have to take three filler courses and then agree to work in the afternoon just so you weren't bored at school all day.  That sounded super dumb so I petitioned the school board to take 11th grade English over the summer and come back to school in the fall as a senior.  I was told it was almost never granted but yeah three dumb classes and a job sounded like crap so I went for it and it worked.  Now back to my story.  I read all about how Malcolm Little became Malcolm X one summer.  I read about how he was told he couldn't be a doctor because he was Black.  About how his mother was essentially stolen from him by mental illness and hospitalized so often that Malcolm really didn't have a relationship with her.  About how he ended up in jail after chasing the only version of the American dream that was readily accessible to him and how in that place he literally did find himself and what he could do for the future.  It was heart wrenching if I'm going to be honest.  Malcolm X and MLK had much more in common than folks want to admit to but one was deemed even more incendiary that the other and thus less palatable to history.  Malcolm X never got a chance to finish the evolution he had begun after breaking with the Nation of Islam but his message, as quoted above, still sits with me.  I will never encourage you to learn about one without the other because they were both focused on forcing America to make good on the promise embedded in the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.  It still hasn't happened though.  That's why the world is in a moment of massive unrest.  I encourage you to learn, to ask questions after you learn, to respectfully listen to the answers you are given.

"Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible."

 "Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet."

 "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
Maya Angelou

So I want start wrapping this up with a couple of points.  Some of the issues that are present currently are strictly driven by prejudice and racism.  People have been fed stories about different groups and without interaction with those groups you don't know that your narrative might be false.  When I was really little, the only understanding I had of Jewish people were the very few Jewish neighbors I had in Illinois and Oklahoma.  When I got to Texas and one of the first major Jewish holidays came around I was confused when some of my classmates were not there.  When they came back to school I remember asking one had she been sick the day before and she said no they were honoring the holiday.  I immediately responded with a "You're Jewish?" to which she politely said yes.  My 11 year old self had never met a blonde Jewish girl before and she didn't "look Jewish," whatever the heck that means.  But at 11 I had enough sense to go oh and that's cool, tell me about your family not tell her there was no way she could be Jewish.  Later that year we both had to refrain from smacking a student who told us the Holocaust was propaganda and that no one had really died in gas chambers and she had to intervene during the annual airing of Roots during which white classmates would routinely apologize to me for slavery.  That's not a joke, it happened every year.  My point in that little aside is you never know who will really be your friends if you just take the time to learn about someone different.  And to not second guess yourself when someone shows you they are a jerk.  The Holocaust denier didn't apologize for slavery no he was just a universal jerk.  But I knew that already so I wasn't shocked by his racist, sexist or generally biased behavior ever again.  And that may be the part where people to struggle to understand the reactions of communities of color, but in particular Black communities, to law enforcement.  When the face you see the most often is one that seems to mean you harm, you are less likely to believe it's an isolated individual--the proverbial bad apple.  When you ask one of your Black friends about the first time they were stopped by the police, please don't be shocked by their ages and or experience.  We all have a story and very rarely was there a good reason for the stop.  To be clear cops have been my heroes after traffic accidents but in each of those cases it was clearly the other person's fault.  And yes I know individual good police officers but my experience as a whole has not been good.  I'm hoping that after this wave has past I meet a new version of law enforcement because words alone cannot undue the actions we have seen or experienced.

"We are really just tired."

Black people everywhere except Candace Owens and Ben Carson

Pandemic plus rage equals what is happening right now.  I've been amazed to see people uniting across races, ages, genders, countries of origin, religion--can we shout out the Amish folks who have been joining in as well, professions, and everything else.  It's beautiful but it's fragile too.  We have a chance right now to make changes permanent and protect every citizen.  If we don't then this collective moment of tired won't come back again.  I don't know what will replace it but that is not what I want to discover either.  We're tired enough to be angry and to tell you about it without trying to make everyone feel better.  We're also too tired to break down this history without you doing some work first.  There are a ton of reading lists out there right now which could help you learn about the things you've been able to ignore but as I have word vomited this much start with White Fragility and then move over to the writings of Jon Pavlovitz and if you really get stuck and don't want to bother your Black friends unnecessarily try White Nonsense Roundup--they are good folks.  Whatever you do though, don't trot out people like Candace Owens or Ben Carson or anyone else who proclaims loudly and wrongly that they have never experienced racism and don't understand why Black people are so angry, are protesting wrongly, or anything else.  I'm not sure when Ben went off into the great blue open but Candace is really chasing a check.  I'm not mad about that but she doesn't represent me or most of the people that look like me.  She's saying what she needs to in order to stay on the speaking circuit.  People found a lawsuit to counter her never experience racism claim in hours y'all so really she's not with us, us being Black people just trying to live our Black lives.  And no not all of us are the same.  There are a variety of political leanings, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, education levels, professions and everything else but as long as we are Black in this country in particular we experience some of the same things.  While I'm there though, this experience is not unique to the US and I think that is why you've seen people across the planet protesting.  An African immigrant in France was only granted citizenship after he turned into a superhero and saved a child from falling off of a building.  An African man was killed in his home for violating curfew during the pandemic--he was at home y'all.  Blacks in China were blamed for spreading COVID and fired or kicked out of their homes even though they were not infected and at the time the spread of COVID in Africa was negligible.  

This is long enough so I'll conclude by saying if you are confused on what to do with your own discomfort that's okay.  Not everyone will protest.  Some will donate.  Some will help organize.  Some will spread factual information.  Some will take care of everyone else.  All of that is fine.  Find the way that you can help that works with who you are.  I'm a worker.  I plan and organize and then pass out.  It's why I'm tired.  It's also why I will get up on Monday and keep working.  I have to do my part in this moment or I will be more upset with myself than with the situation and believe me I'm very upset with the situation.  

“In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.” 

“Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread, and deep-seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.”  

“You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.” 

“Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.”  

Shirley Chisholm