Grief. It’s such a loaded word. It’s sometimes hard to understand the person who’s grieving the loss of a
job compared to someone who has lost a parent. Yet, grief is deep and real and when someone is in the
midst of their sorrow, it can feel all-encompassing.
As a community, we shared a common grief and supported one another through the quarantine of Covid-19. We understood how people could feel lost, hopeless, depressed, and scared through the entire ordeal. As we were just beginning to see the light past quarantine, we saw the death of a person at the hands of a police officer. While this didn’t happen in our community and, most likely, no one here has ties to George Floyd, we have all shared in our outrage and grief.
As I have watched the news about the riots, I have had a range of emotions. I can understand the rage a community might feel when their black men are being killed – a rage that is so extreme that they will
burn the world around them in their grief. I understand the pain that this has caused for many families.
What I am having a harder time understanding is how people can protest that Black Lives Matter while simultaneously causing the death of several black men during these protests. Are demonstrators saying that these lives didn’t matter as much as the bigger picture does?
I also can see that when emotions are running high, people are prone to lash out. White privilege
is real. What we need to look at is how we start anew as a society and tear down racial barriers. I don’t know if anyone has figured out how we can accomplish that yet and I’m not sure that these protests and riots are adequately doing the job. What they are doing is proving that there is a problem, but looting businesses, causing mass chaos, and beating up people is only exasperating the issue.
It seems as (most) children grow up knowing that all lives matter, but there comes a point when society teaches them that whites matter more than blacks. This needs to stop. I hope as a mother, I can teach my boys that their race doesn’t put them above anyone. I want them to look at everyone as if they are equal and if they see a disparity or something that doesn’t seem fair to them or someone else, I hope they will take a stand to make it right.
As I watch my boys enjoying the summer, I can see that this is the easiest time of their life. They couldn’t care less about the color of a friend’s skin. The most important thing to them is having fun.
What I see here are two articles that seem to be focused on white privilege. I don’t see how that promotes unity in any way.