I don't have a lot of followers and know the my platform is small, if I have one at all, but I still wanted to share some feelings Ive been holding in since the senseless murder of George Floyd.
I was physically sickened as I watched the life leave that begging man. As my own father was a victim of the police and their crooked system, I wondered if he felt the same as he bled out, his throat slit and yet still able to beg for his life. I thought about George Floyd's pain before he left this world and burst in to tears when he cried for his mother. I did not see the color of his skin in the beginning. I saw a man, a father, another victim.
I saw the cruel people responsible and the hurt people left behind. I hurt for his daughter so deeply. That sweet girl who will never have that graduation photo with her proud papa, never dance at her wedding with her father, never share the joys of watching her children with their grand-dad. I ache for her. For their family. And then the other truth came. Maybe if he had been white...he'd still be here with her.
I am not blind to the truth but sometimes forget because I don't see things that way and neither do my children. That is until some act of cruelty reminds us. They are always there. They have been my whole life. In the almost 35 years Ive been on this rock, nothing has truly changed for black people, especially in America.
My first real experience with true racism was as a preteen. I lived with a racist man that told me I could not be friends with the black girl in my neighborhood, to whom I adored, simply because of her skin color. I was being punished for being a black girl's friend. That girl heard and came to the door of my home and verbally FOUGHT that man for our friendship. She held my hand the very next day at school and told me she'd always be my friend no matter what he did.
I did my best to make sure my children grew up knowing equality in all things. My daughter was only 7 when she came home and asked me why people were so mean to black people after learning black history. She has black friends and hispanic friends and a difference had never occured to her until the school made it clear that there was one. "It's just skin" she said looking very sad. All I could do was hold her and tell her she was right. It was heartbreaking to see her hurt for her friends.
America is that land of opportunity...for whites. My husband, who is foreign but caucasian, was flat out told he would likely be approved for stay in this country because he was white. It was a startling thing to hear from someone working for the government. Why did that matter? Is this really how our country chooses who stays and who goes? This can't be right. It is though. Equality is a made up word in America. It's put out there to make outsider's think we are better than we are.
These things are disgusting. They are examples of how equality does not yet exist. I am privileged to be white and ashamed that that is a thing I have to say; But it is a truth. It shouldn't be a truth. I do not know the world the same way the black community does, but please know I stand with you. I will stand and fight, in any way that I can, until all the people know the world the same. The same rights, the justice, the same love. Starting with black lives.
I will find ways to do my part and you all should too. You may not be able to do more than offer your heartfelt words, but it is better than silence.
