We watch another heartbreaking video of a black man being killed, having the life squeezed out of him under the knee of a white police officer, and we watch the comments coming in saying all of the standard stuff - if he hadn't resisted, if he hadn't have done something illegal, if he had only listened to the police, if he only... if he only... if he if he if he if he if he only...
If you think this is all the fault of George Floyd - say his name, say it out loud - George Floyd - if you think this is HIS fault, if only he hadn't (fill in the blank), if only he had (fill in the blank), then you think these things are OK, too.
- Me, dying under the knee of a police officer, for shoplifting a $5 ring from a gift shop on a school trip in the 7th grade (peer pressure is a wonderful thing, isn't it?);
- Me, being shot in the back by a police officer, for running (along with several friends) when we were discovered under-aged drinking on a nature trail in the woods behind an elementary school;
- Me, being shot repeatedly in the chest after stumbling arm-in-arm with the "'love of my life that week" off a bench and towards a police officer who was yelling at us for smoking pot and violating the open container law in a Wisconsin park after hours? (And is a goat-skin bag an even an open container?)
And yet, here I am, decades later.
Still here.
Still living.
Still breathing.
Still remembering these and countless other crazy things I did that I'll likely never share.
Is it because I'm lucky that I didn't run into any of the police officers who have been involved in - and most, absolved of - the murders of black men?
Maybe; obviously, every black man who has an encounter with the police does not die as a result of the interaction. Only way too many of them do.
But the other reason I'm still here, still living, still breathing, still remembering, is because I am a white female, not a black man. Of that, I have absolutely NO doubt.
I have the privilege of being allowed to live, when I commit minor violations of the law.
A significant number of people - fellow citizens, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and total strangers don't have that privilege.
George Floyd did not have that privilege. Eric Garner did not have that privilege. Philando Castile did not have that privilege. Amadou Diallo did not have that privilege. And dozens and dozens of other black men - and a lesser number of black women - did not have that privilege, and are dead because of it.
They are dead because capital punishment is handed out not by a court of law, but by police officers.
If you think it's OK that George Floyd and the others are dead at the hands of the police, you can't think it's OK that I'm still here.
If you think it's OK that I'm still here, then you can't think it's OK that George Floyd and the others aren't.
You can't have it both ways: Wish me dead, or be angry that they are.
tears
ReplyDelete