Why Black Lives Matter

This is a long post folks. It needs to be. It may also be rambling, for which I am sorry. Bear with me to the end, please.

Growing up, I was not very enlightened when it comes to race in America. My parents were very liberal, and supportive of civil rights and a host of other things, and my father was in the kind of business where he traveled the world and that affeted his views a great deal, but my personal experience was not that, because I lived in mainly white suburbs.  My dad also traveled all over the US including into small towns in the deep south for business and I remember him coming home one day and telling me that South Africa during apartheid had nothing on many parts of America.  I heard it, but neither understood that or experienced it. 


And as I now know, without experiencing it, there can really be no understanding. I don't say that because I understand more than anyone,  on the contrary, I may understand less. Experience has opened my eyes, don't get me wrong, but also to the fact that I know much less than I think I do most of the time, I say that as nowI live in a very white state in a very white suburb where a college student once said to my son “Wait, you have black friends?”. Mind you he wasn’t being necessarily  judgmental or overtly racist, it was simply outside of his experience.

My parents did give me the experience of having my growing up years being overseas where I experienced many cultures. But even there, the people of color were mainly in their own and comfortable environment, so while I met and interacted all the time, I was the outsider and there was not the historical context there is in this country on race.  Six years on a military base exposed me to race, but as many people can tell you, meeting people not in their home environment is a different experience. As is living in a "barracks" or apartment and spending much of your time in "the field".  Although racism and sexism are or were certainly rampant at that time in my day it was less overt, and obvious and controlled. when four people are sleeping in an ambulance...I will say that there was some cultural education and I learned that the phrase "big legs" (do people even use that any more?) is not an insult. Among other things.

 All of which to say is that, while I have been blessed to have to some unusual  and or out of the box cultural and racial experiences and interactions,  at heart I was(and mainly am) just an average white girl. As was my husband the average white guy. We had not had the deep, intense exposure to other people of color or cultures that exist in this country.

A little bit of that changed when, in 1984, the Federal government sent (and I do mean sent) my husband and I to Washington, DC. Where, for twenty years, we lived in two very diverse, very nice, in demand middle class inner suburbs. We, and our children, were, while not necessarily the minorities here, certainly not necessarily the majority other.  A PTA back to school night in the nice suburban Arlington or Alexandria Virginia would be filled with obviously white, mainly waspish (by heritage and genetics) parents. Along with multiple Vietnamese and other Asian parents, Hispanic parents,  African American parents, families from the Middle East of all religions, black families who had emigrated from Africa, and more. All in the same proverbial pot.  A really terrible copy of an annual Halloween party photo at my home shows my very blonde headed blue eyed daughter-with her myriad of friends. Not seen, of course, are all the parents aside of the picture enjoying adult time before escorting the trick or treating mob.

 In the house next to me, there lived a professor and his wife who had escaped from the Philippines during the Marcos regime. When they decided to return, the family that moved into that home had escaped from Iran right before things got really bad. 
The family who lived across the street were Muslims who escaped the first Beirut war, and my daughter used to fast with their daughter during Ramadan, and she would spend holidays with us. Her mother watched my projectile vomiting son when I was visiting my dad on his last days and my husband was in the midst of 20 hour work days.  Down the road a couple houses, my daughter’s two best friends were African American twins. When they were about five, I found them all in the back yard “dissecting” rolie polies, the friendship progressed from there (really, they were looking at their insides, lol). At middle school graduation, one of the girls wrote that my daughter was “Like a reverse Oreo, white on the outside, and black on the inside”.  She still loves that over twenty years later.

This is where if you are expecting me to talk about how much bettter I am, how much more I know or how I am an expert, you would be wrong. Very, very, very wrong. On the contrary. I have learned how much I don't know, how much I need to know, and how much further I need to go, without question. For me, it is still a constant struggle. The knowing and meeting up close and personal has not changed that, but perhaps made it worse since I actually know what others have experienced and dealt with.

What's important to take away here though, is that struggle is lessened a milllion percent for my kids who grew up "totally immersed", for lack of a better phrase. Yes, they are still white.  difference, I hope and believe, is that they know that, remember it most days, are not afraid to call out (again for lack of a better phrase), those who think that makes them better. And while I could talk for hours about the advantages of living in a multicultural area for families and the joy and education that came from it in terms of raising children, while am happy to tell you that the best thing I ever did for my kids was something I had absolutely no control over it, this post is not about that, either.

This (admittedly very long post) is really to share the experiences of my son. Everything I've written to this point is really about this. My son, who first lived in Northern Virginia and then on extreme diverse bases overseas, and whose friends literally cover the spectrum.  Who has had an average life, except that to many it seems, he has not. My son, and the wonderful, average, everyday friends he grew up with. Who were often not like him, in appearance at least. And who have been treated differently than he has, in some times drastic ways, simply because of the way they looked. Not the way they dressed, or where they came from, or how they behaved. Just because of how they looked. The very white, very blonde kid, who lived among people of color  and whose (mainly black and POC) friends have always been more not like him than like him, either in Washington or on a military base in Germany. Because to be a young white kid in a middle class neighborhood with friends of color is to know the reality of what things are really like. To know, without any doubt, how systematic racism works, at it’s basic level.

 My son has lived in a walking suburban environment where he has walked home from middle school in a hoodie and headphones (and probably done some jaywalking and property crossing in the process), and not had to be fearful of confrontation. In fact, my kids were taught at an early age than if an adult who is not in uniform or police identified tries to speak or stop them, they are to run. To light, to authority, to home.  He has gone into stores with a group of his friends, and been the only one not to be singled out, accosted, or checked, just because he was the white kid.

He has never been pulled over just because, when he was driving in his own neighborhood, and he's pretty sure none of his friends can say the same thing.  He has never been accused or suspected of stealing in a store, and it's doubtful of his friends of color can say the same thing-even when they were in groups with other white kids. He has never been thrown out or told to get out of the car for no other reason than the police felt like telling him to do so, and none of his friends can say the same thing. He could run in his own, mixed neighborhood, at any hour of the day or night, without someone walking to the other side of the street or without police stopping him because they weren’t sure he belonged there.  Because he is a boy, when he drives somewhere north or south, he does not have to worry about questions. Nor does he have to be worried about being stopped (for the most part) if he is dating interracially or the responses by authorities and others to that fact.

I have never, ever had a discussion with my son about how to protect himself when being stopped by a cop, because I have never, ever been worried about that. And my son sometimes speeds, I am sure and he drives cross country as well. The ONLY conversation I have ever had on this topic with my kid is to remind him that if he leaves a legal state like Colorado  with drugs and goes into a state where it is illegal they might try and confiscate his car, so just don’t do that.

Today most of those young pals are young adults hiting thirty and they live all over the US and the world. None of these young people  have been physically harmed that I know of. But I know that they live in fear of it, and I know that their parents live in fear of it. Not just sometimes, but all the time. All the time, every day.

 And just to be clear, the parents of these young people are just like you or I.  Teachers (so many teachers), librarians, military officers and NCOs, restaurant owners.and restaurant waiters bankers, bank tellers, business people of all types, retail store employees, golf pros, nurses, doctors, nurse's aids, personal trainers,  people who work at newspaper classified sections wedding photographers, stay at home moms, stay at home dad, service station managers, and all the jobs of every type I missed. I forgot to mention. Regular middle class folks, living in a regular (and supposedly more friendly and safe) middle class environment. Whose experience is totally different from yours or mine when it comes to equal treatment, harassment, and authority.  

And that, my friends, is why Black Lives Matter.