George Floyd-We Need Each Other

I cannot be quiet while my country bleeds. Growing up in the sheltered white culture of western Massachusetts, love of flag and country was instilled in me, not just as a special Fourth of July event but through the example of my father, a World War II veteran. “Liberty and justice for all” was not just a pledge to recite every day. I thought it was the creed that we all lived as Americans, but I was learning only one side of my nation’s history. Today I sit in horror having witnessed the public daylight slaughter of George Floyd, an unarmed black man on a Minneapolis sidewalk and of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black male jogging through a Brunswick, GA neighborhood. Then there was the midnight murder of Breonna Taylor, a black female EMT who was sleeping inside her own home. We know it’s not new. Since 1619, those of us who are white have been systematically taught that we are the real Americans, we are more deserving, and our needs come first. Now the streets of our beloved country are literally aflame with the anger, the fear, and the shame that has always been a part of our American legacy, one that we as white people, for the most part, have had the privilege to ignore even though it lives in our hearts, alongside those cherished creeds.

We will not stop the bleeding until we – those of us who are white – are willing to take a stand, to speak up against racial hatred and divisiveness wherever we encounter it – in our families, our government, our neighborhoods. Most important, we must be willing to face it when we find it in our own hearts.  We don’t have to do it alone; we have allies everywhere. We don’t have to be perfect. We do have to be more troubled by behaving like a racist than we are about being called a racist. We, all of us who call ourselves Americans, are bleeding out through this open wound of racism, a wound that has been festering since 1619. This is our American problem, not a problem that black people should or can solve alone. To quote one of my heroes Jackie Robinson: “Life is not a spectator sport.” Neither is healing this national outpouring of pain and rage and grief. We can become the nation that fulfills the promise of our cherished creeds. To heal, we need courage. To become fully American, we need each other.

Be well,

Bill