Time to Speak Up
As we all react to the news of the last few weeks — the recent murders of black people in America (George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade), the incident of Amy Cooper weaponizing her race against and Christian Cooper in Central Park, and the protests around the country — we’re creating space for thought, reflection, and discussion.
We’re starting by sharing words from black women writing their thoughts in media and social media. Please reach out if you would like to add your reactions, your reflections, and your voice to the discussion.
Implicit bias
Michele Norris writes in The Washington Post, “How Amy Cooper and George Floyd represent two versions of racism that black Americans face every day “
A lot of people are condemning Amy Cooper without interrogating the implicit bias in their own actions. Sometimes it is as subtle as clutching your purse a little closer when a black person steps into an elevator. Sometimes it is as overt as willfully overlooking the patterns in hiring decisions, mortgage applications and property assessments that lead to a condition in which the median white adult who attends college has more than seven times more wealth than the median black adult who attends college and almost four times the wealth of a median Latino with similar education. Economic exclusion is the engine of inequality.
Adrienne Green writes in The Cut, “Millions of Amy Coopers: They could be your boss or your neighbor or your teacher, if disturbed on the wrong day.”
“I’m not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way,” she told CNN later on (she was fired from her job at investment firm Franklin Templeton and has voluntarily relinquished custody of her pup). Amy joins a sorority of may-I-speak-to-your-manager ladies, the ones trying to huff their way into grocery stores without a mask, the “Karens,” as social media has dubbed them. The severity of the instances varies (the spectrum of entitlement isn’t limited to calling to cops), but they’re connected to the same playbook. Play the victim whenever they feel a person of color is intruding in “their” space — in a park, in a neighborhood, in the spotlight — cocky and certain that things will work out for them by privilege and design.
It’s sometimes comic, the offending subjects meme-ified on Twitter, swiftly mocked, and the chorus celebratory when consequences are actually suffered — in this case, as soon as one day later. But what becomes of all those Amys who don’t get “caught” on video? Amys (and Karens) exist all around us. They do not come from a single geographic region or socioeconomic class or subscribe to a uniform political identity. They could be your boss or your neighbor or your teacher, if disturbed on the wrong day. They know it, and that is the scariest thing.
Reflecting on the media and public response, Brittney Cooper (@ProfessorCrunk) wrote on Twitter
reflection and action
From Danielle Cadet writing in Refinery 29, “Your Black Colleagues May Look Like They’re Ok — Chances are They’re Not”:
The likelihood that your Black colleague lost a family member to COVID-19 is painfully high. The chances that your Black colleague was triggered by the viral video of Amy Cooper because a white woman used her race and privilege and weaponized it against him is incredibly likely. The possibility that your Black colleague is afraid to go for a run, or terrified when her husband leaves the house, or just simply enraged by the incessant lies this country keeps telling us about equal liberties is so high you’ll need a ladder to get it down.
And yet, she’s responded to your passive aggressive email, and he’s smiled through your condescending questioning. Or even just found the strength to peel themselves out of bed and simply show up. Every day, Black people take the personal trauma we all know to be true and tuck it away to protect white people who are ignorant to the fact that it’s nearly impossible to keep going when your grandma won’t survive coronavirus because she has serious pre-existing conditions. It's hard to be your best self at work when we watch white women feign terror on the phone with authorities that will arrive at the scene and kill the Black man she called the cops on. It’s even harder when you watch those cops kill that Black man on video, and sometimes the killers aren’t even cops.
But we show up for work anyway. And we contain our rage, tears, fear and sadness. We write to each other in group chats. We send each other articles that articulate our feelings. We post and repost and retweet on social media. But we don’t take our pain to work.
Rachel Cargle in her “Public Address On Revolution: Revolution Now.”
“We have holidays that celebrate the courageous civil war heroes, yet when the word revolution comes out of a black mouth it is taken as offense, and met with confusion about how we could possible suggest anything other than to march quietly, to protest peacefully. That is what Martin Luther King Jr called ‘negative peace’, which is simply the absence of tension, vs a ‘positive peace’, which is the presence of justice. What is peace when the only people who get to rest in it are those with white skin?”
…
“Our revolution is one of liberation, one of community value, one of black joy, of black ease, of black lives mattering. How will you show up in this time of human history? How will you tell the story to your grandchildren of what actions you took during the civil unrest in the year of 2020? How will you show up not just as an ally but as an accomplice, to upend the systems that are quite frankly killing us all? There are several ways to be part of the solution. Everyone has capabilities that must be put into action immediately. There are educators, there are organizers, there are activists, there are mobilizers, there are fundraisers, there are artists, there are those who will redistribute the resources they have to the people who need it most, there is you, there is you, there is YOU.”
Bridget Read writes in The Cut, “What’s More Deadly: ‘I’m terrified of the coronavirus… But I had to choose which virus poses the biggest threat. And that’s the police,’” where she also captured reactions from young protestors in Minnesota explaining why they took the risk to join the demonstration.
The pandemic has exposed so many of America’s deep veins of inequality down to their very core. There can be no doubt now that there are those who can afford to stay safe inside and those who can’t: People who are overwhelmingly poor and nonwhite and who are dying. It is a sheer incongruity of experience mirrored in another disease, another terrifying virus disproportionately inflicting harm on the same communities, that of racist police brutality. For the overwhelmingly young crowd in Minneapolis, there’s a sense that the stakes have never been higher, that the only thing left to do is to fight for their lives, together. Nothing else is working. “I had to choose which virus poses the biggest threat to my family, friends, and me,” says Sućdi, a student who has been out every day and night, carrying signs and wearing her mask. “And that’s the police.”
Resources
Self-Care Tips for Black People Who Are Struggling With This Very Painful Week by Rachel Miller
Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup