I had a difficult time going to sleep last night, haunted by all that is happening in this so-called greatest country in the world. I want the violence to end. I want the virus to go away. I want peace and harmony and prosperity. But most of all, I want change.
The only way I could find to “make it all go away,” if only for a little while, was to turn off the television, shut down the computer and say a few prayers for this nation and its people.
I realized just how fortunate so many of us are. We can turn everything off and take a break from it all.
But the black people of America who are treated so poorly–sometimes even by those who adamantly proclaim themselves not to be racists–don’t have that luxury. Because even when they turn off their televisions, even when they shut down their computers, when they lay their heads on their pillows and when they wake up in the morning, they are still black.
No matter what they have achieved, or whose son or brother or father or sister or daughter or mother they are, no matter how gentle or how kind or dedicated or hard working, they will always be black.
I’ll never know what it’s like to walk in those shoes, to be judged by others simply because my skin is a different color.
I’ll never know what it’s like, as a mother, to worry that today may be the day that someone may deem my child a threat and respond accordingly. And I’ll never know what it’s like to get that knock on the door and be told that my child has died in a senseless act of violence and to know that it is simply because he or she, by genetic lottery, was born black.
What is happening in this country is so wrong. We look back through history and pat ourselves on the backs and proudly proclaim how far we as a country have come since the days of segregation.
But it’s all a lie.
Tonight, when I lay my head on my pillow, and tomorrow, when I awake, I will still be white. And somewhere between that time, there’s a good possibility that another innocent black person will breathe his or her last breath due to violence or bigotry. And another mother will get that knock on the door that no mother should ever have to face.
And it’s not okay.
