A Tiny Ripple

Less than two weeks ago, George Floyd's life ended abruptly and cruelly.
What do you feel about it?  What do you think about it?  What do you do with it?

If you're like me, you are deeply disturbed by it.  By this one man's death, and the countless previous, similar deaths, and the unimaginable ones yet to come...and by all that is behind and around it that slowly and insidiously breaks down the health, worth, opportunities and well-being in every measurable form of Black people who live, breathe, and feel emotions just like any other human being. 

And you want it to be different.  Maybe you're sad.  Livid.  Terrified.  Furious.  Depressed.  Frustrated.  Overwhelmed.  Helpless.  Fed up.  All of the above.  Or, frozen and numb.

As a White person, I have options and choices about how much I engage and how I respond.  This freedom of choice is only one of my many privileges - and it leads to the challenge (and opportunity) of making the best choices about how to stand up for what I believe in.  

I have the challenge of how to lead, when I like to listen. I have the challenge of how to be courageous, when I like to be cautious. I have the challenge (that so many people have) of wielding more power than we might realize, or even want, and doing so responsibly. I have the challenge of knowing my many privileges that I did not earn, that I did not choose, that I have through no virtue of my own. 

And my real challenge is aspiring to live up to that.  It's not possible. Yet it is possible, and imperative, to choose how I use and show up with my privilege in a genuine way to address the heartbreak of seeing human lives robbed violently and callously by the same people that we entrust to protect the public welfare and safety... by a profession that represents entirely different things to different people in our country. Because demographically, and historically, we're treated entirely different ways by that uniform and the policies and procedures behind it. 

And that's just one of the institutions that's been passed down with layer upon layer of systemic injustices, and racism, and prejudice and ignorance...all of these ugly words that people want to go away but for different reasons. Some people want them to go away because it's uncomfortable. Some people desperately need them to go away, because their lives, their brothers’ lives, their children's lives, their partners' lives, and their fathers’ lives depend on it. 

My own life does not depend on it, although my heart still breaks to see it, and to have loved ones whose lives depend on it. And to know that the diversity of our experiences, and what are immeasurable, priceless strengths, instead create different realities that continue to oppress and disadvantage, or unfairly advantage, people before they've done anything, and without them doing anything, to earn it or deserve it. 

It's society's own self fulfilling prophecy.  

And then the excuses. The attempts to justify the double standards. Because these are not things that would be okay with ANYONE if they happened to somebody that they loved. And that's hard to even say. Because, how come we don't? How come we, collectively, don't love these neighbors? These family members? These friends? These colleagues? These fellow citizens. These human beings. 

How come we can look at the loss of this, George Floyd's life (or, or, or...so many names could go here), and not every single one of us is outraged and heartbroken? And looking for anything and everything that we can do to contribute to a change? 

Because my challenge, and our challenge, is so small in comparison to the people that have no choice about their lives being on the line. Just by living. 

As awful as it is, we need to keep facing this example of systemic injustice and realize that these deaths are happening to people in their cars, when they’re out for a run, and in their homes (just to name a few). When they're doing nothing. When they're not even the person that they're suspected to be. And what if they were? So what if they are the person suspected of forgery, for the most recent example? Would we have accepted it calmly and peacefully if that had been a White man on the ground under the officer's knee for almost 9 minutes? (And what's the likelihood that it would even happen if it's a White man on the ground, is the bigger question.) Would we collectively accept that? And the numbers, the stats, and when we’re honest, our own wise emotions tell us clearly that we would not. We would absolutely not.  Because we know it's not okay.  Nothing about it is okay.

I know a lot of reasons, intellectual and emotional, that make it hard for White people, myself included, to do everything that we could do. Even when we believe in it. Even when we want to.  There's intellectual understanding of it, when we explore an identity development model and consider where we are in our own stage of awareness and white identity development...Whether we identify as being colorblind, whether we're overwhelmed by white guilt and shame, whether our inner conflict and fear of losing privilege move us in and out of awareness.  And the emotional correlates of those stages including a range from defensiveness, anger, guilt, sadness, helplessness (and empowerment can exist there too, just FYI)! 

When I've facilitated past organized workshops and trainings - Cultural justice, cultural competency, cultural sensitivity, etc. - at the individual, group, graduate class, or organizational level - I know that, pretty much universally, the first and strongest reaction I'm going to receive will be defensiveness.  (Now, to put it in context, these are often people that have not chosen, individually, to be there and rather the decision was made for them.)

The defensiveness is strong. That's understandable, and even normal.  Because people don't want to feel like they need to improve, and they certainly don’t want to be told that they're doing something "wrong", even if that's not the purpose.  And this may be even more true if they genuinely want to and try to do "the right thing." There's so much shame and embarrassment for the people that want to see themselves as allies and advocates for social justice, or at least as someone “innocent” of racism or bias. The risk is so high that they might misstep.  Misspeak. Not know it all or have it all together. 

Which are impossible expectations. 

Because we're not perfect. And we are raised in families, and in a society, and in a country that is not perfect.  So, even genuinely well-meaning people, people who really want the world to be better, get scared away.  And then, too, if we're only preaching to the choir, then we're really not reaching far enough to the other people that need this message, that need to come along, to really transform this culture. 

Because that's what we need, right? We really need a cultural transformation. And that requires courage, and compassion. Support, and challenge. If the only way that we approach it is with shaming and berating people for not knowing enough, or not doing enough, or judging and criticizing their attempts, then how do we move forward? Emotionally, if people don't have enough safety to engage, then we're back to a fight, flight or freeze reaction. And if they have too much comfort, then they become complacent. And neither bodes well for progress. Neither moves us where we want or where we desperately need to go. 
We need to create enough safety to build tolerance of the discomfort and enough discomfort to build intolerance of the injustice.

I don't have all the answers. What keeps coming up for me, from my years of training and work as a psychologist, is the process through which people change. And if people don't change then society doesn't change. So we really need to begin with individual change in order to do the cultural transformation. And I think in order for people to change, there needs to be enough at stake to motivate stepping into the discomfort. There is no way to change without it.

So we need to really be clear about what's at stake. 

Lives. 

Our morality. 

Our social conscience. 

The future of this country. 

And even, and especially, in recognizing the very high stakes of not doing something, somehow, we need to create the opportunity for people to be willing to make mistakes and be vulnerable. Because we learn from our mistakes, and we cannot keep learning from the failures resulting in people dying. We need to be able to have conversations where people can say the things, and get the feedback, and the experience, and the knowledge, and the awareness, and the skills, to grow. 

I want to start with changing the world. But when I think about how to do that, I come back to the simple and profound quote, "Be the change you wish to see in the world" by Mahatma Gandhi.

That's where I'm going to keep working. Because, if each of us could do that, I do believe that there are enough of us that are well meaning, (even if misguided, unintentionally harmful, and unaware) to create a cumulative tidal wave of change. And it's not about being heroes. As part of the system, we're far from that. 

It can be about being allies. 

It can be about being advocates. 

It can be repair for wrongs that have been committed. 

It can be renewal. 

Because we need all of us with our privileges and power to join with the voices that are crying out, and those that have been silenced, to lift them up where they can be heard, valued, and respected. 

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. 

Robert F. Kennedy, 1966, University of Cape Town 

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