I Don’t Know How to Talk to White People About Ferguson
Witnessing racial violence feels more personal when you’re black. I couldn’t watch the video of Eric Garner being strangled by the NYPD because his large frame and dark skin reminded me of my father and my uncle. Trayvon Martin was killed as I was teaching black teens on the west side of Chicago who wore hoodies to class every day. The first time I had seen women with bodies like mine (full soft bellies and pendulous breasts) on screen was in the film “12 Years a Slave” as they bathed to prepare for auction.
The ongoing tragedy of police brutality, media manipulation, and injustice in Ferguson, MO, is unbearable to watch but I can’t tear my eyes away. I’m consuming every piece of news and every editorial that emerges from the tear gas and no-fly zone. Seeing images of black people like me lying dead or injured in the street is creating chaos and turmoil inside me.
But as a black woman in a mostly white social circle, I don’t know who to turn to and how to talk to them.
How do I talk to white people about this!? How can I possibly explain the rage, fear, sadness, and every other emotion I don’t have a name for yet as I watch these events unfold?
My white friends are tagging me in posts and articles about the shootings and subsequent protests forcing me to look at more images of racial violence because I’m their politically conscious black friend.
Will my white friends understand that those images remind me of my younger brother? Will my white friends understand that I’ve been lying awake at night wondering if my younger brother, who is the same build as Mike Brown, will be stopped by the police? Have they ever sat in front of their younger brother at empathyeducates – I Don’t Know How to Talk to White People About Ferguson:
The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race
Photograph; A protestor during demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo. on August 17, 2014. | Credit; Jon Lowenstein—Noor for TIME Kareem Abdul-Jabbar @kaj33 | Originally Published at Time. August 17, 2014 Will the recent rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, be a tipping point in the struggle against racial injustice, or […]
