Facing Injustice for Eric Garner

I’m furious today and thinking about race. Barely a week after a grand jury in Missouri refused to indict a White police officer in the shooting death of a Black teen, a grand jury in New York refused to indict a White police officer in the choking death of a Eric Garner, a Black man and father of six.

As a White person, I am embarrassed that other White people get to use their privilege to escape punishment. I am fearful for my son’s Black friends. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be the parent of a Black child today. (Mikki Kendall can, however, because she is. She wrote a piece two days ago for Bustle titled “The Worry and the Wait for Justice: What it Feels Like to be a Black Mother Right Now.” Go read. It is all the more poignant because of what happened yesterday.)

I have no grand ideas for addressing the problems of racism that plague our country. I hope I am making some small contribution through my day job (unconnected to this blog) with the National SEED Project, an organization that helps educators, parents, and others create community spaces for conversations about equity and inclusion, empowering people to initiate social change.

Change begins with ourselves, however, so in my personal life, I try to do the following — an incomplete list, perhaps, and not always perfectly followed, but it feels like a start. It may not be a list that works for everyone, but I share it in case some find value in it:

• Continue to examine my own feelings and assumptions around race.
• Be aware that I am privileged because of my race, and try to use that privilege to be an ally, rather than an oppressor.
• Speak out when I hear or see others engaging in racist behavior.
• Vote for candidates whom I believe will uphold standards of equity and justice for all.
• Teach my son to judge someone by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr. — but also not to be colorblind and deny that people’s social experiences vary based on their race.
• Teach him about the racism that still exists in our country, in ways big and small.
• Provide him with examples of the lives of people of all colors.
• Model for him what it means to be an ally.
• Listen to the voices of people of color and adjust this list as needed.

I recognize that at a time like this, however, we also need to do more — to speak out beyond our usual venues, to march, to join in other types of protest. I’m not here to say which ones are right, just that I hope we all do something. We are all part of an “inescapable network of mutuality,” to quote Dr. King again. Racism is not a “Black” problem. It is a problem White people created. It is a problem that impacts our whole society. It is time for us all to pay attention and work for change.