“Seeking Justice” That’s what it says on a button I wore this morning to join the ranks of those standing up in cities across the country in the wake of yet another police taking of a Black life they didn’t think mattered.
We stood quietly, masked and appropriately distanced, spread out along a busy stretch of street. We waved at the honking cars that passed. And the honking garbage truck. And the two honking city buses.
It’s been a long sad week in America. George Floyd died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Amy Cooper, short-leashing her dog as she called the police on bird-watching Christian Cooper, told the 911 operator an “African American” man was threatening her. A third man was arraigned for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged through a Georgia suburb. And all the while the deaths of Americans—a disproportionate number in communities of color—crept past 100,000 in the face of federal lack of preparedness and disinformation.
That those of us whose lives have been made easier by the color of our skin must stand up to demand change is beyond question. That this has gone on far too long is also beyond question. It is late, but if we are more lucky than we deserve to be, maybe it is not too late.
This morning those of us standing on that street and streets through the country did a small thing. We showed up. We stood with others. We bore witness.
As I stood there, a young black man walked past me and said quietly, “Thank you, guys.”