In moments when I’m capable of joking these days, I joke that 2020 should fire its writers because this script has too many unbelievable plot lines. It jumped the shark on about the 47th of March, but it just keeps finding new sharks. The pandemic was “unprecedented” enough! But then there’s an economic crisis like none we’ve ever seen? And murder hornets? And now there’s also another black man murdered by the police and what feels like about 3 concurrent revolutions all vying for different goals?
People I know and love are living in veritable war zones. Places I care about are destroyed. My sense of who to trust with my personal safety and with the good of my community has crumbled. And all of this, I know, brings me only one step closer to understanding the world in which my black and brown neighbors have lived for generations.
What makes me reel is the sheer overwhelming scale of the problem. Because no, the current upheaval is not just about the cop who murdered George Floyd last week, or the three cops who stood by and watched it happen. It is certainly not about a “bad apple” cop. After all, this “bad apple” was recruited, nurtured, and protected by a system much larger than he is. It is not even solely about George Floyd, horrific as his murder was. Sadly, we have ample proof that this kind of killing can happen without much more than a ripple across society.
No, the heartbreak and the rage and the fear are because these kinds of killings can happen, and have so often happened, without much more than a ripple across society. And it has got to stop. Black lives matter. And once black lives finally matter — to all of us and to our social systems — then, finally, all lives will matter. And having lives matter is really the bare minimum, don’t you think?
We have to do better.
I have to do better.
Yes, thank you. So well said.