As I sit
here comfortably in my home in one of the more affluent regions of the planet, I
nonetheless experience a combination of sadness, anger, disgust, and fear in response
to what is happening in the world. Particularly, I feel overwhelming sadness for
Black people in the United States, not just for the recent murder of George
Floyd by the police, but for what his death represents: literally centuries of
oppression, persecution, and murder of Black people in America.
As I peer
down at my hands, my fingers typing away, I am aware that the pigmentation in
my skin would fit with the label of “white” or “Caucasian,” and I question if I
should even be speaking on recent events. On the one hand, I’d rather boost the
messages of leaders within the Black community (which I do whenever I see the
opportunity) than add my own voice. On the other hand, I am bombarded with messages
that say “silence is complicity,” and being a descendant of Holocaust survivors
(only two generations removed), I feel the need to write in order to express something:
When I fully
allow myself to contemplate the horror that is racism, that a human being could
be reduced to an object of scorn because of the coding of their skin pigmentation
by nothing more than genetic chance, and that this is the basis upon which they
could be murdered, I am deeply horrified. I am at first filled with immense
sadness, because although I am not a person of colour, I am a human being that can
empathize with other human beings. I don’t know what it’s like to be the target
of anti-Black racism, but I do know what it’s like to have hatred unfairly
projected upon me and as a result be a target of violence. It’s a horrible,
terrible, and potentially traumatic experience. What I don’t know is what it’s
like to live with the threat of that sort of violence every single day because
of my appearance. Not having that experience on a daily basis is part of what
is meant by the term “white privilege.” And the fact that there are literally
millions of people living society every single day with this experience fills
me with despair.
After the sadness
comes the anger. I am enraged that we live in a world in which we allow these
events to happen. I say “we” because we truly are one species, one human race,
and as such we bear a collective responsibility for our fates. The reality of
our interconnectedness becomes clearer to me with each passing day. I am angry
that those in positions of power do not put fixing this problem at the top of
their list of priorities. Not only that, but in the year 2020, the president of
the United States literally repeats the same phrases as those used by racist politicians
and police chiefs in Jim Crow South in the 1960’s – and he doesn’t seem to see
anything wrong with it.
The anti-Black
racists have not disappeared. The KKK has not disappeared. They are employed in
government, the media, the military, and police departments. Instead of openly
calling black people “n*ggers,” they call them “thugs” – this is the new codeword
that they think they can get away with. It is not a priority for them to
address the systemic issues that perpetuate racism because in order to do so
they would have to own the darkness within them – the darkness that they have
projected onto Black people. This darkness is what Carl Jung called “the shadow”
– and for racists, it involves the rejection of feared (and possibly traumatized)
aspects of their own humanity. This suppression results in their fear, rage,
and disgust (which would be more appropriately directed at the racist parts of
themselves) being ignorantly projected onto people of colour.
"A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbour."
After the
sadness and anger, comes the disgust and the fear. I am disgusted when I see
pictures and videos of white cops killing unarmed Black men with impunity while
bystanders watch and film. I am afraid at the lack of political will and conviction
among elected officials to draw a firm line in the sand and declare that these
atrocities are not allowed to happen anymore. And I can’t help but feel
helpless.
How am I
supposed to make a difference in all of this? Does sitting here typing out my
thoughts and feelings and then posting it online actually do anything? Will
anyone who needs to read this actually read this and if they do will it make
even the tiniest bit of difference in addressing the enormity of the problem of
anti-Black racism? The cynical side of me says, “probably not,” and the truth
is I have no idea. Maybe this is just an attempt to help myself process what I
am seeing and reading about online. Maybe it’s an attempt to address the assertion
that “silence is complicity” and add my voice to the growing number of people
who refuse to stay silent. Maybe it’s an attempt to heed the wisdom of calls to
action from far greater people than myself.
Regardless,
I can think, I can feel, I can write – and so I write. When and where I see
opportunities to speak out or to act, I will do so. To whatever extent
possible, I will do my best to be part of the solution and not part of the
problem. Black Lives Matter. Taking a stand for the basic human rights of all
human beings matters. Let’s all of us, please, take these turbulent days as
opportunities to make this world better than it’s been thus far.
