George Floyd
Hello Friends,
On Tuesday, April 20, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd.
I want to take this opportunity to pause and reflect on George Floyd’s life — a life he wanted to live, deserved to live, and was supposed to live. I wish that we as a society were moved to action simply by witnessing the everyday trauma that is being a marginalized person in America and not because we watched a man call out for his mother and have the life drain from his body under the knee of white supremacy. George Floyd was not a martyr. He was a father. He was a son. He was a brother. He was a partner. He was a human being deserving of dignity and respect. Derek Chauvin’s conviction represents accountability for the crime he committed, but it falls short of justice. Justice would be George Floyd’s life and not his death.
Last week we mourned 20-year-old Daunte Wright who was murdered at a traffic stop in Minneapolis, only a few miles from where George Floyd took his last breath. Soon after, we mourned Adam Toledo, the seventh grader who was shot in the chest by Chicago Police. Moments before Tuesday’s verdict was read, 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant died at the hands of a Columbus police officer. While writing this, I learned about Andrew Brown of North Carolina, a father of ten who was murdered by police.
White people who are heavily armed, visibly dangerous, and unequivocally guilty are apprehended and arrested without issue. Why are Black and Brown human beings not given the same treatment? We know the answer is racism, and the reason you’re here, reading this newsletter, is because you wonder what you can do to combat it.
After a year of writing out three point action steps, and hyperlinking charities, and selling tickets for workshops, I know (and you know) that the answer to combating white supremacy is more arduous and more challenging than reading a book, or following a color coded list. The work is lifelong. It took 400 years to establish this society and it will take time to unravel its web of bias and privilege.
I am tired, but not hopeless. I am devastated, but not despondent. I believe in a future without endless waves of tragedy and injustice drowning those that are most vulnerable.
Today, I don’t ask you to watch a video or take a survey or sign a petition, but to sit with yourself and shine a light on the darkest corners of yourself. To question your efforts. To question your biases. To question your motives. To imagine a world where you do nothing more than eradicate racism from your own mind, from your own home, from your own community.
The learning and the donating and the uplifting never stop. Buying from Black-owned businesses and ordering books from Black authors, signing petitions to relinquish Indigenous lands and writing letters to abolish ICE, uplifting Black and Brown leaders and paying for Patreons and workshops and events — these things matter. But take a look inside. Take a moment to think about who you are and who you want to be.
I am tired, but not hopeless.
Continue. I know I will.
