exhaustion
The past few days have felt like five billion eons and it’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe that in 2020, we’re still out protesting police brutality. We’re still out trying to tell people that the media is not the enemy of the people. We’re still out here fighting for our rights.
To start this out, I work in the media. I cannot remain silent about this, even though I work in an industry where we’re taught to remain open and partial to all opinions, even if they differ from our own. We’re taught to remain neutral in times of chaos; to not let our biases shine through.
I’m also a minority. It’s hard to remain silent about this when we’re living in such turbulent times. I write this today as a human being, not a member of the media.
When my brother and I were growing up, my mom tried to raise my brother and I to the best that she could. She tried to instill good values in us. She did. She really did. But as we grew up, those efforts fell short. My parents are a biracial couple. My mom, raised in the south, is white. My dad, who was adopted as a toddler, is Japanese, who became incredibly Americanized once he came over to this country.
My mom tried to instill the theory that “people have no color; we should not see color,” otherwise known as the “colorblindness theory” in my brother and myself. It took me until college to unlearn that theory.
As a young kid, I also found it weirdly soothing to study up about the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the Civil War era, most notably the Underground Railroad and the fight to abolish slavery in America. I was fascinated with the Civil Rights Movement, and I saw that long after it took its foothold in America, nothing really changed. I wanted to help make a difference and spread awareness about that and that stuck with me as I grew older.
It’s 2020 and people are still out there fighting for the right to be considered equals, much the same way as they did during the Civil Rights Movement.
It wasn’t until I was a junior in college where everything I had learned growing up was challenged. I took a “World in Conversation” course at Penn State, where my eyes were opened. Another mixed-race person told me she understood where I was coming from, and she heard what I was trying to say, but that the idea that we shouldn’t see race or color was quite bluntly, bullshit.
She was right.
Having a white parent meant that somehow I had learned that by not seeing race, I was turning a blind eye to the injustices people of other races experienced. In a sense, I was trying to turn a blind eye to their experiences in the fight to become equal, as well as their struggles trying to fit into society. That I was ignoring the blatant racial injustices happening in front of my own face.
I wasn’t trying to do that. I’ve grown up hyperaware of my place in society as a mixed-race person. I’ve experienced racist remarks from peers who didn’t know better. My brother has as well. I’ve grown up not feeling like I was “white enough,” as well as not being “asian enough.” I sometimes can pass as a white person, and I understand that that’s a huge privilege in its own right that could keep me safe, while others might not be in the same position.
One of the first pieces my AP Language class read my junior year of high school was “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr., and I have found myself coming back to it a lot over the last few days, where the following lines stood out to me:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
And that’s where we are in 2020. Police brutality is at an all-time high, and it’s terrifying to live in a society like this. It’s terrifying to see my media colleagues out trying to report on peaceful protests get arrested, hit with rubber bullets, injured and teargassed.
But it’s even more terrifying to see members of the police use their power in society against Black and brown people. Against people of color. Against people who do not look like them.
People across the country are upset with the way the police treat minorities. People in Black communities are tired of being opposed. They’re tired of walking around in fear of becoming another hashtag. They’re tired of being on edge when they see patrol cars in their neighborhoods. They don’t want to be another statistic.
Black children are growing up not sure if they’ll be the next target. If their friends will be the next target. Their families.
All of us around the country are witnessing a new era of history. We’re witnessing even more calls for racial violence and injustice to end, because we’re still living a world where there is no peace.
It’s not fair.
It will never be fair until something finally changes.
I live in a society where I recognize that my existence is much different from others.
I live in a society where I recognize that I have privileges that others in the community don’t have.
I haven’t experienced or felt what the Black community is going through right now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t ache with them. That doesn’t mean I can’t support my colleagues who are having a harder time with this and try to amplify their voices. That doesn’t mean I can’t hold space for their pain.
I can do all of those things while trying to advocate for some change.
I can do all of those things while trying to shine a light on the issues plaguing communities because it’s their voices who need to be amplified.
I can do all of that knowing that if people don’t fight for what’s right, things will only start to get worse.
They already have, given the platform some leaders in our country have, where they’re using language like “thugs” or “very fine people” to describe differing groups out protesting. It’s the rhetoric that matters. It’s also the rhetoric that divides.
That rhetoric also leads to actions which divide. We’re seeing that play out in real time, in an age where cameras are always recording. We’re seeing more of these actions because the recordings end up on the internet, spreading like wildfire. These images are burned left in the memories of people to haunt them.
Kevin Devine released the song “Freddie Gray Blues” back in 2016. It’s still relevant today.
the system’s broken
not breaking
it’s done.
I write this with a heavy heart. I write this knowing that this period of unrest, in the middle of a pandemic, was sparked by yet another incidence of police brutality.
This is for George Floyd. For Breonna Taylor. For Freddie Gray. For Philando Castile. For Alton Sterling. For Sandra Bland. For Akai Gurley. For the voices who’ve been silenced over the years when they shouldn’t have been.
Want to help? Start by educating yourself to what’s happening around you. Volunteer in your community and be an advocate for change.
Donate to community outreach efforts. Donate to funds like the Minnesota Freedom Fund, National Bail Out, to any local effort that might need the support.