Today I spent the day at the lake with my friends. A group of young minorities, taking a break from work and school to celebrate the end of the semester and trying to reclaim some semblance of normalcy in the midst of a pandemic. While we were at the lake we snapped selfies for Instagram, and swapped stories about crazy professors and transitioning to online classes.
It was the perfect day reminiscent of an innocence of earlier summers, and I thought about how much I loved life — and then I thought of George Floyd and wondered if he loved his life. I wondered if he woke up that morning, and if the day that would be his last seemed as unassuming and filled with things he loved as mine had been.
"Being black is having a good day and then seeing that another black person was killed for no reason, and then you have to think about/talk about that all day." — Quinta Brunson.
George Floyd's name is another painful addition to a long list of black lives that have been cut short, and an agonizing reminder of how some of our fellow citizens see us. It's gut-wrenching and baffling to everyone that there's a video of his life slowly leaving his body in such in inhumane way, but even more so for African-Americans who know that had there not been a video, there would likely be no justice or national outrage for his murder.
"It is difficult to continually intake videos of our trauma, let alone live them ... It's our inherited state of groundlessness. Never having a place to land, to ground ourselves, or feel safe in the world." — Yara Shahidi.
To be saddened and abhorred by what happened to Floyd is natural and human. But to mourn his life as another fallen brother tried and executed for no reason other than looking like you is what it feels like to be black right now.
Standing in your living room in utter shock watching as peaceful protests morph into incidents reminiscent of the 1960s is what it feels like to be black right now.
Choking back your tears to explain that the violence taking place is inexcusable but also trying to convey your peoples' frustrations to your non-black counterparts is what it feels like to be black right now.
Being black right now is the hurt you try not to linger on as you decipher the meaning of the presidents' tweets about protesters and what they might really mean about you.
The current stream of consciousness of black America is a constant loop of heartbreak, fear, and frustration yet still we hope.
We have seen members of our own community come together in support of one another. We have seen police make efforts to limit tensions and condemn the actions of the few who have gone against what they stand for. We see those of you who are not black standing with us, speaking out for our cause, evaluating your own biases working to be part of a solution. We see you all and we thank you.
