Thoughts running through my mind as protests begin to make their first waves after the murder of George Floyd.
Imagine being told you don’t belong. Imagine being told you are wrong for this world.
Imagine being told you are wrong for your neighborhood, you community, your job, you career. Imagine being told you don’t deserve what your neighbors, friends, and colleagues deserve.
Imagine working your butt off at the two jobs you have/ working your butt off at school, maybe having all three, but you’re treated like a criminal when you are not.
Imagine being afraid of someone killing you even though you’ve done nothing wrong.Imagine you might die if you ask a police officer a question.
Imagine you get shot while you were out jogging. Imagine you didn’t do anything wrong but someone said you MAY have, and your dead the next second.
Imagine every time you walk down the street people cross to the other side when they see you coming.Imagine you’re afraid to ask your neighbors for help.
Imagine you’re afraid to let you son/daughter play tag, or cops and robbers outside. Imagine your car stalls, and rather than receiving help, an officer stops to question you, and you’re shot.
Imagine you comply with commands and you’re murdered anyway. Imagine your death is caught on camera and your family can’t free themselves from reliving your murder.
Imagine being told your peaceful protest does not matter, it’s not good enough, inappropriate, unpatriotic, even though you love this country. Imagine that same group of people telling you all this have their own protest.
Imagine being told you have to accept their protest because you don’t get to tell them what’s important to them.
Imagine showing up to yet another protest for a wrongful death/murder of a friend and being tear gassed.
Imagine that you’ve tried everything, and no matter how you try to resolve the issue you’re told; “you’re doing it wrong”
Imagine being told all of this, and experiencing all of this simply because your skin color does not match their skin color.
Imagine the same people telling you this and saying; “you’re doing it wrong”, are the same that strongly believe in the 2nd amendment. They believe in protecting themselves and their families, including but not limited to protection from the government, if it ever came to it (a less likely scenario compared to what is factually happening) But, when you try to protect yourself, family, and friends, they tell you, once again, “you are doing it wrong”.
Imagine some people don’t believe your skin pigmentation to be equal to theirs so much so that your only way ‘in’ to this “equality”, your only chance, is to have different POC allies, more specifically, white.
Your friends, your families, your neighbors, aren’t fighting to get a haircut. They are fighting for something you already have, a basic humane essential need, so that maybe someday protesting a haircut will be the only thing we have to protest. They are fighting to get an equal voice at the table that they deserve and that you NEVER had to fight for.
Yes, if it was up to me, everyone would protest peacefully, and change would simply happen. Unfortunately, sometimes being peaceful does not generate the change so desperately needed.
Sometimes, well behaved people rarely make history.
Sometimes it is not your place to tell someone how to grieve the loss you’ve never experienced.
And, please, if you’re reading this and at any point you said, “but….” just know that you’re reading my post to respond and not to understand, and you may as well “unfollow/unfriend/block” me because there is no excuse for racism.
#thisisnotaboutpolitics #ReadToUnderstand #blacklivesmatter