Notes on America #4 — George Floyd
I’ve watched roughly 100+ friends post photos of George Floyd across various channels. I’ve thought about posting some kind of #icantbreathe message because it feels like the minimum, but the truth is I’m exhausted.
It’s hard to put into words how seeing well intentioned support tires me out. The best explanation I’ve read is that while you’re having a normal day, you see another Black person killed for no reason and now have this dilemma of whether to “spend your day engaging, or spend your day numbing”. Regardless you’re now involved, you had nothing to do with it, and you’ve lost part of yourself to it.
Privilege gets bandied about a lot right now, so much so that it’s for sure starting to lose its potency. The ultimate privilege, be it White or wealth or other, is the freedom to be an individual within a system. Being able to truly know that the the vast majority of your day is under your control.
Having consistency in the expected returns of what you put out. Being able to trust your personal data, allows for more of your time to be spent on growing yourself. This creates upward mobility in all facets of our lives. If you look at anyone who has inconsistent responses to their actions…victims of domestic abuse, PTSD sufferers, people born with mental health issues… they all have to deal with trauma before progress.
Dealing with centuries worth of collective trauma, playing out against individuals on screens daily, is now core to the Black experience in America.
There’s a constant low level effort in knowing that what happens to others that generically look like you, is actually potentially something that can happen directly to you, for reasons you have no control over.
It’s one thing when it’s prejudicial laws, we can (and have) overturned some of those, even if new ones keep popping up. It’s another thing when it’s just your state of being. Knowing deeply that you will not have an equal and opposite reaction when faced with similar situations as your supposed peers. This doesn’t have to be murder, it could be a simple job interview, or whether you get tips as an Uber driver. It all adds up.
This is not in anyway suggesting people stop supporting, or stop posting, or stop fighting the good fight. I just want to articulate some understanding of the nuanced differences between shouting “I’m tired of this shit”, and the weight of the burden that comes from a culture being actually multi-generationally tired.
I’m all for change, I’m all for protests, I’m all in to keep going here. Just remember some people are doing this everyday, just by breathing, even when they don’t tweet about it.
