Dark Night — Vancouver
Amidst changing storms – both inside my own skin and outside our home – the focus and first lines of this blog have shifted many times over the past few weeks:
What is it about baking bread? Bringing back the old, simple and grounding traditions & reflections on my grandma Henrietta.
Close the door and go inside (or the varied gifts of COVID): I didn’t know I was going so fast & the connection and quiet creativity of a closed door.
The Walls of COVID – longing & heartbreak: Separated from loved ones in sickness and in health – those dying alone and those that watch them & the now solid borders between us.
The already poor and vulnerable hit hard:
Okay, we’re tired of this now:
When I think about the overall focus of my so far sporadic blog, I don’t know. I only know what charges my heart and spurs me to write. Just when I thought some COVID outcome would be the theme, or just as we were embarking on our “COVID commitments,” those things we don’t want to lose once this invisible and eager virus goes away. And just when I couldn’t imagine more heartbreak, gifts and surprises and pain, a worse tragedy erupted – the strangling of a black man under the force of a white police officer’s knee.
Over twenty-years ago, not far from the epicentre of the current rage and fire, I taught writing courses at the University of Minnesota focused on “Racism & Human Rights in America.” The obvious goal of these courses was to teach writing, but equally important to me, was to coax students into questioning and understanding the deep injustices based purely on the colour of one’s skin, or someone’s varying [dis]abilities, or the desire of one’s love. I wanted to do for my students what my education had done for me – give me eyes, and a heart, to see.
I still vividly recall my bike ride out to Tanner’s Lake Beach back in my early twenties. To take the straight road there, I needed to head through East St. Paul, at the time – a neighborhood dense with visible minorities and dilapidated houses. I pedalled past folks perched on porches to escape the heat of their house, or leaning against a 7-11, having a smoke and seemingly stalled in time. I also recall stopping roadside to tip my head towards the curb, to release the confusion and rage tight in my chest. Raised in small-town white-America, I could not believe what I saw. How in this rich and abundant city does this poverty exist? And why is everyone here black or brown?
In the past month, flashbacks of pictures have occupied my mind – from the 1960s, to 1965 and the year I was born – of stand-offs between white cops and black people fighting for their rights. Recent videos roll through my mind like a horror film in the middle of the night:
I watch a father and son team in a white pick-up truck chase down and hunt a young black man on a tree-lined street in Georgia. Ahmaud Arbery, who was out for a jog, tries to dodge the truck as the white son jumps out – boom, boom, boom – three shots, dead.
And George Floyd, a man laid off from his bouncer job, suspected of passing a counterfeit bill at a grocery store – knee on neck, “can’t breathe” – cold and gone.
What if it would have been one of my brothers running in that white neighborhood or pushing a counterfeit bill on Lake Street? It is impossible to imagine the same outcome. Was I in danger when I was biking down that street in East St. Paul, now so many years ago – not likely. White is a colour. White is the colour of my skin. We are white and the colour of our skin has impacted us, in positives ways filled with advantages – seen and unseen, known and unknown – in the same way George Floyd’s skin impacted him in repetitively negative ways. The final violent and hostile negative took his life. There is no going back. Too many times. Fire and rage.
Right now: A family and friends have to live with that final scene that I can no longer watch – the last eight-plus minutes of George Floyd’s life – with a white’s man’s knee stealing his last breath. The wife of the white officer (who has since filed for divorce), and her children, must try to make sense of this man with whom they shared their life. Other visible minorities who struggled to build-up their businesses, now walk numb through char and shattered glass. We have a white-man hiding out in the White House who refuses to show compassion nor understanding – tear gassing peaceful protestors to stand in front of a church holding a Bible. Whose god is that?
And yet. For me, there is always: and yet. I cannot stop believing in a better day. We see more white people pounding the streets, furious alongside blacks and all visible minorities, demanding change. I have watched a white police officer hold the head of a young black man, who was crying uncontrollably, and then hug him like a son. I see more male and female black leaders – intelligent, reasoned, compassionate and impassioned – leading us clear and strong, showing us the way. I have watched white churchgoers gather in Houston on George Floyd’s childhood basketball court, where he played but also reached out to others. They took a knee in front of Floyd’s family and community, and with tears streaming down their white cheeks, asked for forgiveness, promising to keep up the good fight right along with them.
I didn’t expect to go political here, in this blog, but I could not write anything before writing about this. Too many hearts ache on all sides of this racial divide. However, there is no doubt that white privilege and advantage has gone on for far too long. We are indebted to make this right. No hierarchy to human beings; no one better than another. Let us all get down on at least one knee, everyday – to pray, to imagine; but most importantly, to work for our common humanity – always breathing at the centre of all this fire and rage.