PROCESSING THE MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD AS A MULTICULTURAL FAMILY
from my journal May 27, 2020:
He has committed everyday of his life to keeping me emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically safe. This morning when I heard the news of another black man being murdered by the police all I wanted to do was keep him safe. He’s been going on walks to pray every morning for a week now and I didn’t want him to go today. Ahmad was murdered while going for a run. He said “I can’t just only leave the house when you can go with me. I’m not going to live in fear” and then I realized (again) that being Black in America requires more courage than I’ll ever be able to understand. We talked tonight about our honest feelings. I had to listen to my husband explain how he felt getting pulled over for a tail light that went out that day. He said , “I thought, ‘license and registration in hand, hands on the wheel. Yes sir no sir.’ And I wondered maybe this is it. Will I make it home tonight?”
But me, l have been pulled over more than 10 times, im a terrible driver. And not one time have I thought “I might be murdered right now”. When I’m afraid, I hope a police man is near because I know they’ll protect me. My friends and I would ask our local police officers for rides home from the bar bc in our college town they had to drive u back to campus or your apartment if you asked. But they drove us through the McDonald’s drive thru first. My stomach cramps and turns even saying that. Privilege on FIRE. I didn’t want my 32 year old husband to leave the house today to go for a walk. How will I feel when my black children get a drivers license? Go to high school? Go away to college? Become 32 year old husbands? My chest fills with anxiety at the thought. I imagine finding out I’m pregnant and hoping she’s a girl because somewhere in my mind she’ll be a little safer? There is no group of people in the law committed to protecting and serving my husband and children and friends and pastor and family and community.
But me, I have the police to defend me. My husband just has himself and hopefully a white bystander to say something!!! Because if a black person intervenes they could be killed and they have their family to think about to. Do you risk your life for the man you don’t know and risk having your wife and children find out how you were murdered? Do you see how sick this is? How lonely and scary the world is for someone who doesn’t look like us? It’s up to US!!!! It’s not up to my black daughter to put her life on the line for her brother ITS UP TO THE WHITE MAN AND WOMAN WHO WITNESS AND STEP IN TO DEFEND MY HUSBAND OR MY BABIES. Dont ooooh and ahhh about how beautiful my mixed babies will be, White people love to do that. Instead marvel at the courage they will possess so far beyond anything you can imagine just by going for a walk in the morning. Marvel at the strength they will possess to know they are powerful and beautiful and brilliant and worthy of their dreams (and protection) not because the law tells them that but bc their mama has been speaking that over her body for them since the day she met their daddy. Please. Please. STAND UP AND SPEAK UP like you would if your family needed you to. Because we do. I do. And I’m counting on you. Whatever you do, when I share a story about our experience please do not say “really?! Is the world still like that ?! It’s 2020” and open your eyes. My heart cannot take your ignorance and my babies lives may depend on your eyes being open and you choosing to borrow their courage to save a life. I could’ve safely intervened. They wouldn’t have murdered me. If I were there I could’ve jumped in I could’ve pushed the officer off of George’s neck. They wouldn’t have murdered me. Imagine the national uproar if they did...
