The World is Watching....

The

 World

            Is

            Watching…..

I immediately know what the words, scrawled in lime green paint on the driver’s window of a worn Toyota Tercel, refer to: George Floyd. His horrendous murder at the knee of the white police officer, Derek Chauvin, with his three fellow officers assisting. The peaceful and violent protests across the country against this entrenched system of police brutality and racism in America can’t be avoided. The curfews. The crowds gathering from Washington DC to the streets of San Francisco.

            When will it ever end?

            Not in my lifetime, I’m afraid. And, yes, as a white woman with so much ‘white privilege’ I always feel like I have no right to write about this issue. What can I possibly say? How can I possibly speak to the outrage that is part of the African American experience in America? I can never know what it’s like.

            Yet, walking down 35^th street, the sky turning a soft pink in the darkening sky, I feel like even though I want to deny it, that I  can’t face the issue, that it would be easier to just ignore it, I can't. It's too horrendous. Too outrageous. Too sad.  How can racism and police brutality not affect every American, including me?

            And the world.

            It is watching.

            And what does the world see?

            A country so divided by race. By white and all those of color. The bigotry and prejudice that people of color face every day in this country that is supposedly built on equality for all. I remember when I was teaching English up at Merritt College in East Oakland, and I would hear stories from my young African American students, mostly the young men, of how they would be routinely ‘stopped’ by the police. Driving down Grand Ave. Walking around Lake Merritt. And I would voice my disbelief, incredulity. And they would just nod, shrug, “Yeah, Carol, that’s the way it is for us.” Or a student missing weeks of class, only to return from a funeral of a loved one, usually a brother, gunned down by police for what?

            Being black?

            Being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

            Yet where is the right place for African Americans in the country? And what can we, as White People, do?

            I don’t know. All I know is that it has to stop. That the protests going on today, sparked by George Floyd’s heartless and cruel killing by a white cop, are only the beginning of an uprising that has been brewing for centuries. When I see the images of Floyd being murdered, captured on video in our modern age, I feel sick. I feel rage. I feel helpless.

            Last night Stephen Colbert interviewed Karen Bass, a congresswoman for LA. She’s been working on legislature to make police more transparent. She was adamant that such practices as a ‘chokehold’ must be banned. She voiced her rage, in calm measured tones, of how the police need to pay attention to their officers’ records, complaints of abuse. Stephen listened, asked the right questions, voiced his opinions agreeing with her. And then, he asked his audience, probably mostly white people, "What are you afraid of, folks? Economic loss? Community insecurity?" And, then he pointed out, " ....look around people, this is already going on."

            I am afraid. With this Coronavirus and all of these people gathering with no social distancing (how could they? And, frankly, this has taken a backseat) to protest-- mostly people of color, lower income, those oppressed by the systemic racism in this country—I fear that they will catch the virus. Because of these crowds. And Trump, in his quest to ‘dominate’ will relish their demise by whatever means necessary. Be it the tanks that he threatens the crowds with or the virus that threatens us all.

            The world is watching. I am watching.

            And today, I sit in my house, safe and small in my world, and think about George Floyd and how his life was cut short, brutally and unnecessarily. I feel for him. His family. And all of us. I want the country to embrace the values that all people are equal. That everyone, no matter their race, religion, gender, sexual identity, is equal and deserves to be treated as a human being with dignity, freedom and respect. After all, isn’t this what The Declaration of Independence promised?  That all men are created equal with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

            Were these promises kept to George Floyd? To all the other people of color murdered by the police?

            The world is watching. What will it see?

            I wish that it could see the world Dr. King had described, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”

            He said this decades ago. And, today? Is this our reality? We’re still a long way off from his beliefs. Yet I have to believe that his idea of unconditional love will triumph. That evil will lose. Yet, with Trump in power, this seems farther away than ever.

            The world is watching, President Trump, what will you show it?

            I am watching! And writing! And seething!