Grief around racism and BLM

I want to educate myself better because every time I see or hear about racism it stings and is so disheartening. Somehow I compartmentalize; I read, watch, listen but it is just not enough for me to be a quietly educated person. It’s easiest to live in the belief that I would never harm another person, or treat them differently in any circumstance because of their race. To be a ‘good person’, in this situation, does not feel good enough.

Here is a generalization, but in my experience I think that when we get all consumed in our little bubble we prioritize what directly affects us and those whom we love the most. We each have a limited capacity for what we can handle. What we can wrap our heads around. Watching the news, scrolling through social media. We are informed but we are somehow disengaged. Isn’t it scary that us ‘good people’ can watch the violence and blatant racism on the news, turn it off and go about the rest of our day?

I somehow didn’t realize what I was about to see when I saw the video of George Floyd being murdered.
We have all now watched a man being murdered.
Some are just hoping that others will do the work to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It is too uncomfortable and beyond our capacity to play a part. So we turn off the TV, try to tuck away that disgusted, awful feeling, and try to go about our day.

I imagine that the lives lost, only very few of which are captured on the TV screen, hits so close to home for people of colour. They know it could just as easily have been a father or a brother. Why isn’t it the same reaction for the rest of us?

I heard something the other day and it was like a punch in the gut. ‘What would you do if this was happening to a family member or a friend?’

I know the deep anger, sadness and frustration I felt and still feel when so many people showed up to the funeral but were barely there to show much interest or support while my dad was sick or after he died. It doesn’t mean they didn’t care, but they sure as hell didn’t feel supportive.
Maybe it is because they were worried about saying the wrong thing.
Maybe it’s an uncomfortable topic and they don’t know how to navigate it.
Maybe they think they took too long to reach out and now it’s too late to bother saying anything.
Maybe they don’t feel like their words or actions are important enough.
Maybe they are quietly saying their prayers at home and thinking of us often.
Maybe they don’t want to bother us.

…But don’t they realize that talking about ‘it’ means the world. Showing up, asked or un-asked, no matter how seemingly small. This runs through my mind constantly. And this is my grief for my 75 year old father who died of natural causes. Who had access to a life, resources and support that so many still do not have in a time where all of us should.

I can’t imagine what I would feel if my loss had been a circumstance of hate and violence and to have to walk among the similar passive reactions that people of colour experience on a daily basis and on a massively larger scale. Oh, and add fear on top of that. For my own life and the lives of my loved ones.

I don’t know what the right thing is to say. But as the quiet person in the back, a first step for me is to have the uncomfortable conversations.