Nearly all the reports and information coming out today, of our collective history, of the myriad of issues associated with race in this country, have not been anything I didn't already know. The question I've been struggling with is, if I knew this was happening, why haven't I done anything? What is the root of my own complacency? Is it because it hasn't directly, negatively, impacted my own life? Is it because I have no faith in my ability to effect change? Am I so afraid of conflict that I can't call out when I see injustice? When did I lose all hope that we actually have any say in our system?
I have no answers to any of the above questions; but my guess would be I have been subject to all of them in some form or another. I need to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable, asking myself the tough questions and ferreting out the even tougher answers.
I agree with you Kim, I know that I was taught to be compliant. Everytime we have that talk about how to act in front of white people we are being compliant so that we keep ourselves from being killed. Some of us are compliant because we have a family to feed and we don't have time to fight justice and go to work two and three jobs, we are too busy surviving. But are some of the reason that I feel are some of us in some shape or form are compliant and I do agree with the idea that we do not have faith that anything is going to change. That is just some of my thoughts about it.
I feel like I was raised being told to mind my own business. Also, as a woman, I think we're raised to be "nice". We're not supposed to be loud, we're not supposed to be bossy, being too opinionated makes you a bitch no one respects or wants to be around.
One of my friends told me he felt similarly with mass shootings. 59 people were killed in Las Vegas, 50 at the Pulse nightclub in Florida, a class of first graders was killed in Sandy Hook and each time you think, "this has got to be it, right? How can anyone not agree things have to change?!" But, then nothing ever changes and we get numb to the violence.
I hate that my first reaction to the death of George Floyd was, "yeah, of course. Of course that happened...again."