Black Lives Matter.

“On the deaths of Arbery, Taylor, Floyd, and uncountable others.”

Trayvon Martin.  Michael Brown.  Laquan McDonald.  These are the three victims of police brutality and systematic racism in America that I knew the names of, prior to about a month ago.  But now, in about a month’s time, I’ve learned the names of three new victims.  Ahmaud Arbery.  Breonna Taylor.  George Floyd.  Six.  Six black men and women who were murdered in the street by racist police and white nationalists.  It’s a disgusting use of force.  It’s a tragedy on all levels.  It’s a human rights violation.  It’s America.  But people of color don’t need me to tell them that.

Police brutality in America is a race issue.  Sure, police brutality happens all over the world.  Tons of countries use the police as weapons of terror and control.  Russia and China are examples, just to name two.  Excessive force and senseless violence show up everywhere, from Hong Kong to Rio de Janeiro.  But I don’t live in those places.  I live in America.  And if the true meaning of patriotism isn’t blind faith in leadership but calling your country to a higher standard, then consider me a patriot.  Because America needs to change.  The evidence isn’t just overwhelming; the body count is overwhelming.

Racism in America is pervasive at all levels, and maybe the most subtle and destructive form of this is white privilege and one of its many proofs-of-concept, police brutality.  I named five people who had been killed by police and one who had been killed by vigilante white nationalists.  This is just a small portion of the victims of racism in America, and if you want to feel really sad, here’s a list of more victims from just one year, in 2015 no less.   None of them were a threat to anyone.  None of them had weapons.  None of them should have died.  But they did, and they’ve joined the terrible list of victims of lynchings in the United States.  Because let’s be real here; if you kneel on someone’s neck for seven minutes while your friends stand around and do nothing while that man pleads for his life, that isn’t an arrest.  That’s murder.  In a more ideal world, the case of George Floyd would be open and shut; the police officers involved used excessive force and killed an innocent man, and no one would doubt it one way or the other.  But this isn’t a more ideal world.  This is America, and this murder was absolutely motivated by race, and that’s where things get complicated.

The vast number of people of color killed or harassed by those in power (who are generally, but not always, white men) is awful.  I didn’t always know it was a race thing, if I’m being honest.  When #BlackLivesMatter first started trending, I said to myself, “shouldn’t it be #AllLivesMatter?”  But I was missing the point.  It’s Black Lives Matter Too, because in this country, black lives, and the lives of all minorities, are still treated as second-rate citizens to white men.  The shooting and killing of black men and women is racially motivated because those in power believe that people of color are a threat to their assumed way of life.  A threat to their power.  And now, it’s more obvious than ever.

If George Floyd had been white, he would have been stuck in handcuffs and gone on his merry way.  If Ahmaud Arbery had been white, that truck of terrorists would have driven right by him not looking twice, and he would have gone on jogging.  If Laquan McDonald had been white, the Chicago Police Department wouldn’t have tried to cover up his murder.  If Christian Cooper had been white, that lady in Central Park wouldn’t have called the police on him, spouting false claims about being attacked by a black man because she knows she can get away with it.  The police will get there, see a black man, and assume he’s a threat.  Christian Cooper could have died.  Thankfully, he didn’t, and that lady got some retribution for her racism, because things like that, using the police as a weapon because someone told you to put your dog on a leash, isn’t a one-time event.  There’s already fear and hate there.  Scratch the surface and you’ll find a racist, my grandfather’s partner says.  And she’s entirely right.

The story of Christian Cooper, while it does have a happier ending, hits especially close to home for me because he was birdwatching, and he just wanted to protect the nest of ground-dwelling birds from being trampled by dogs.  I love birds.  I take it for granted that I can go out at any time of day, any time of year, and go see birds without being harassed.  If you’re a minority in America, you can’t even fucking look at birds without your life being on the line.  That’s terrifying, and something I will, as a white male, never, ever have to worry about.  Because that’s the country we live in.

The security head of my mom’s office building, who is black, talked to her about how he had to have a talk with his 22-year-old son about how to act around police, and white people in general, so that he doesn’t get shot and end up as another name on the lynchings victims list.  That’s horrible.  My parents never had that talk with me.  They sat me down once and gave me a book explaining how puberty works.  They never had to tell me to “move slow” or “keep my hands out of my pockets” so I wouldn’t arouse suspicion that I might have a weapon.  In a similar vein, my parents never had to warn me to keep mace on me or avoid parking lots alone at night.  Because I don’t run the risk of being assaulted and raped the same way a woman or female-identifying person does.  And I’ve never had to worry about how other people will view my religious clothing and practices, or worry that someone’s going to break into my mosque or temple and shoot up the place.  I never got those talk because I’m a white man.  That’s white male privilege.

All those protests about the quarantine orders and the pandemic stuff, those are all overwhelmingly attended by white men.  Heavily-armed white men.  White men who carry grenade launchers and guns that can obliterate a classroom of kindergartners in eight seconds, all because some other white guys three hundred years ago thought it was cool for everyone to have a hunting rifle that took two minutes to reload.  If those protesters had been black, or Hispanic, or Muslim, there would be tear gas, rubber bullets, and more murder.  But because they’re white, the police gently ask them to leave and disperse.  They don’t need to worry about police brutality because they have white privilege.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s an anecdote from 2017 about how two men, openly carrying assault rifles, were treated differently.  Surprise surprise; the black man was thrown to the ground while the white man had a pleasant conversation with the police.  Still don’t believe me?  Think about this; why is Malcolm X vilified while MLK is sanctified, despite them having basically the same goal?  Because Malcolm X approved of fighting back.  When your people are being killed in the street, Malcolm X said minorities have a right to defend themselves.  And American history hates him for it.  When black people protest, it’s a riot, and the dogs and SWAT teams show up.  When white people protest, it’s a “protest,” and they can carry their RPGs into the Subway restaurant.  It’s two separate worlds.

I don’t want to blame the police for this (though I do), because the situation is huge and vastly complicated, and I’ve had positive experiences with the police.  Of my six or so interactions with police officers, four have been positive.  That’s a pretty good track record.  But if I were black, any one of those interactions, positive or negative, could have ended in my death.  And this is partly because, sure, police officers have huge problems with PTSD, something that still goes under-acknowledged in this toxic masculine country.  Being under stress like that all the time is certainly damaging to anyone’s health.  And sure, maybe it’s partially because the system is designed to put down minorities, so it isn’t fair to entirely blame the individual officers, but at the end of the day, it’s one person who pulls the trigger.  Not society.  Assuming that black men are dangerous and should be killed is racist.  And, by that definition, many cops are racist.  Both individually and systematically.

Another difference, I think, is that police officers, especially white male ones, can take off the uniform at the end of the day.  They get to “turn off” that responsibility, they get to remove themselves from the risk of being shot at.  Minorities in America (though especially black men) can’t do that.  You can’t take off your skin when you get home so that if the cops show up they think you’re white.  You can’t change the way you look, and you can’t change the way that those cops are staring down their sights at you.  But you can, at least, try to change society, and make it safer for your family.  Your people.  For everyone.  And that’s the point.  That’s what, it seems to me, Black Lives Matter is all about.  And that’s what I want to try and help with; that change.  Even if it isn’t my fight or my place, I can help so that more black men and women aren’t shot for no fucking reason.  And so can you.

I try to avoid divisive politics on this site.  Sure, I’ve mentioned before that I consider myself a socialist, and that I’m pretty far left-leaning, but I haven’t actually talked about anything on here.  I’ve said that I think Trump is a moron and that a basic living wage for everyone, guaranteed by the government, is a good idea.  But I can’t do that anymore.  I need to say something now, in light of everything that’s happened.  Silence is compliance, and I don’t want to be silent any longer.  I can’t be silent any longer.  This shouldn’t be a divisive topic, anyway.  So here’s something: friends, family, white people, please listen.

This is a post mostly for white people.  This piece is a little different than what I usually post, since it’s going to be coming not from some meticulously planned pre-production stage, but directly from my conscience and my heart.  But here’s the thing; it isn’t some huge, groundbreaking, informative piece that’ll change the world.  No, I can’t do that, and it isn’t my place, even if I could.  This is me throwing my hat in the ring, in a sense.  Putting my support behind a movement that can really make changes.  This is a plea to those around me, especially those close to me who may not agree, to think critically about, and change, what’s happening in our country.  What’s been happening for hundreds of years.  And, if we don’t do anything about it, what’s going to happen for hundreds of years to come.  Because let’s face it; I’ll never be oppressed, and if you’re related to me by blood, chances are you never will, either.

I’m having a hard time writing this because it’s such a huge topic.  Where do I even begin with something that spans hundreds of years, millions of people, and thousands of miles?  Where do I even begin to talk about something that I will never really know first-hand?  Because I can read all the Tyehimba Jess poems and Kendrick Lamar songs that I like, I’ll never really know the feeling of being a minority in America.  I’m white, I’m male, I’m ostensibly Christian, I’m middle-class.  The only “minority” part of me is that I have anxiety, OCD and I’m kind of gay, and all those things are really easy for me play down or hide.  So this isn’t my fight, but this is my country, and I directly benefit from my white privilege just by existing.  I need to do something.

I read an article (that I now can’t find) that said that if I was sickened by the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, then the best thing I can do to help stop racism is, one, acknowledge the fact that I benefit from white privilege, and then get educated on race in America.  And two, to show my support for movements like Black Lives Matter.  Attend rallies, marches, hold signs, but most importantly, talk to family and friends, especially the white ones.  Get them committed to fighting racism, get them on board with ending systematic oppression, get them to open up their minds to new thoughts.  Get them to change.  Get you to change.  Because people of color, especially black men and women, already know the struggle.  They don’t need to be told that police brutality exists.  Chances are, they’ve already experienced it.  But for, someone who never has and never will known true societal oppression, I can try to teach other white people.  And, eventually, if enough white people figure out what’s going on, then we can help the real activists implement these changes.  More than anything, they need white people to step out of the way of these changes.

For me, the moment that white privilege clicked for me, the moment when I realized that, oh shit, this is real and I regularly benefit from my skin tone and the deeply-ingrained economic, social, and political oppression of minority peoples, was when I looked at some band-aids.  Every band-aid I’d ever used had been the color of my skin.  That seemed normal to me.  I’d never seen a brown-toned band-aid.  All those white-skin band-aids?  They were “skin tone bandages.”  No alternatives for people who don’t fit the “norm.”  No consideration of other colors of skin.  Only white.  And then it hit me that, if I wasn’t white, I would never experience having a band-aid that looked “normal” on me.  It was something I’d never thought about before.  Something I’d taken for granted for my entire life.  And now, it’s like I saw it with new eyes.  That’s when I knew that white privilege exists.

I don’t want to be voiceless about this.  I’ve seen it happen three times in the last two months, now.  And while I’ve supported the Black Lives Matter movement since high school, and I’ve done what I can to support other minority groups since them, it took that much death and destruction to get to me and finally write about it, and I’m ashamed of that fact.  If things are going to get better, I need to change, and so does pretty much every other white person.  If you’ve read this far, thank you.  Even if you think I’m a liberal sheep, or even if you really are a racist, thank you for reading this far.  Like I said, this isn’t going to be some ground-breaking piece.  At best, it’s just my guilty ramblings and some rough way to assuage my fears that things will never change.  At best, it’s something to help distance myself from being part of the problem.  But let’s be real here; this isn’t going to change anyone’s opinions of race in America, white privilege, or police brutality.  But I tried.

If just one person reading this thinks, “maybe I was wrong about this whole race thing,” even for just a second, then writing this has been worth it.  Even if that’s as much as I can do, it’s something.  If this post plants the seeds of doubt in your long-held negative beliefs regarding the Black Lives Matter movement, then we’re one tiny, minuscule step closer to making the world a better place not just for minorities but for everyone.  You don’t  have to tell me whether this changes your mind on anything.  You don’t have to tell anyone, really.  Just maybe stop sharing those crack-pot conspiracy theories on Facebook.  Voice your doubts to your loved ones the next time they use the N-word or complain about Colin Kaepernick kneeling.  If all this did was piss you off, fine.  Unfriend me from Facebook if you want.  Refuse to talk to me at Thanksgiving this year, if that’s your wish.  But please.  Try to think about it from someone else’s perspective.  Try to see it from a non-white perspective.  Do the research.  Cross the aisle, read from the other side.  Even if not for the issue itself, then for me, as your family, friend, or stranger on the internet.  I’ll listen to what you have to say, too, if it’s reasonably presented and supported by facts, because we both might be surprised at what we learn.  And maybe, just maybe, it’ll change us all for the better.

As a last note, if you’re a police officer reading this, well, I’m not sure what to say.  I’d say I’m sorry, but I don’t know if I am.  I guess I’m sorry to the “good” police officers, the ones who aren’t racist and are a part of the police force to truly protect and serve the entire community, not just the privileged top.  To those that are confused about their place in everything as a conflicted police officer, thank you.  Those doubts of yours can lead to change.  I don’t what form it will take for you, but keep thinking and analyzing.  Hold yourself accountable to a higher standard.  And to those officers with a chip on their shoulder and a bad attitude, to those who think that minorities are just a bunch of dangerous hoodlums, or just stand around and watch, shame on you.  If you can’t protect and serve everyone equally, don’t be a police officer.  And for God’s sake, don’t unload seventeen bullets into the back of a black teenager.  How would you feel if it was your son?

But as we all know, if you’re white, you’ll never have to worry about that.  Let’s try to make sure no one has to worry about that.   Although she wasn’t quite talking about the same thing, Emma Lazarus still seems quotable here.  “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”  Let’s make the world a better place.

To those victims of racism in America and the families of those victims, I’m so sorry.  May they rest in peace, and may their deaths not be in vain.  They will be remembered forever.