Imagine you’re at home and the phone rings.
It’s your wife or your son or your father, telling you they have car trouble and they’re stuck in the middle of the road. You’re worried at first of course, but then they reassure you that it’s okay because the police are on their way. You exhale and feel at ease and you put the phone down.
But almost immediately it rings again. It’s a number you don’t recognize. You answer it, and the breathless, nearly inaudible voice on the other end of the line tells you to go turn on the television. And there along with rest of the world, you learn in real-time that your wife, son, or father is—gone.
Gone? Dead? But how?
Your mind instantly races toward the possibilities. Hit by another vehicle? Robbed by an opportunistic criminal? A stress-induced heart attack?
No. Shot to death—by police, in the middle of the road with hands raised.
You fall to the ground and grief overwhelms you. You hear the horrible sound of your own voice screaming.
Life as you know it is over.
And then imagine that you’re told that you need to stay there on the ground and be quiet and behave yourself.
Last night, a white friend posted this far too familiar preemptive social media chastisement to the black community and those who might be outraged in solidarity, at the shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte.
“No need to riot or protest. What is that going to do? You’re going to push the cops and they will have to retaliate by their laws. And you will suffer. You don’t want to fight the police, you won’t win. Cooperate. Your life will become easy. Obey the law. And for those who said he had a book. Do you know? Do you believe that? Or do you believe the story of those who have been sworn in to serve and protect you? This isn’t anything we can do now. The justice system has it now.”
This is the disconnect. This is privilege. This is the second way white people fail people of color. We abide daily, deadly atrocities against those they love the most deeply in this world, and then expect them to silently endure them because the alternative is too uncomfortable for us.
We want them to die and grieve—and to do it quietly.
And when they refuse, we send in military-grade officers and armored vehicles and tear gas, and we brutalize them once again for daring to be rightly outraged in the face of the most outrageous of acts.
No.
White friends, we don’t get to define grief for the black community.
We don’t get to tell them, before the bodies of their loved ones are even cold, how to properly respond to the murders of their fathers and brothers and wives.
We don’t get to make the rules on both when they die and how they mourn. We don’t get to police their pain.
To my friends of color grieving again today and to those doing so in solidarity: Grieve as loudly as you need to. Rise up. Protest. Scream. Demand conversation. Demand to be heard. Refuse to be shamed into silence or intimidated into shutting-up. Fully feel the depth of your sadness.
This cannot stand. This is not acceptable. This is not America—or at least we will not let it be our America.
We will loudly grieve together, and when they meet our tears with tear gas, we will meet them with defiant hearts that refuse to relent.
We will lock our arms and fix our eyes, and demand a justice that rightly honors the lives taken too soon.
This is not just a wake, it is a waking-up.
Get John’s Email Newsletter
Receive regular updates with speaking dates, media links, book launches, shareable graphics, and regular content regarding stuff that needs to be said.
