The Fear
Despite the Covid 19 pandemic, recently I’d been in a good place. I was settling into a new routine prioritizing and balancing safety and self care. My core group of friends and I finally came to a consensus about how we can gather and celebrate each other going forward in a responsible way. And just like that, Ahmaud Aubery. Christian Cooper. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. More names to hashtag and add to a long list of Black people who don’t get justice when things go horrifically wrong. The world simultaneously became a place I recognized and one that I didn’t as this flurry of racially charged incidents landed like combination punches from a skilled boxer. I realized that more than feeling enraged, I was processing fear.
The fear of mismanaging the duality of Blackness
As the news of recent events began to unfold, life was still going on. My godson just finished his junior year of high school with straight A’s while pressing send on his application to Stanford. He is still receiving offers from D1 schools and preparing for his senior year of academic and sports greatness.
My young cousin (who is like my nephew) is preparing to leave on his first deployment as an Army Reservist. He came to visit and we had an opportunity to spend quality time together as he embarks on a significant chapter in his life. I had fun being low-key drag-raced around town in his pride and joy, Sheila, his very loud (in color and sound) and fast car.
The internal dialog/argument began. I want to shout to the world my pride for these two young men who mean the absolute world to me, but I am so angry and disappointed in this world that doesn’t see them for who they are. Do I suppress my urge to question my nephew’s choice in car so he can experience being young and having fun? Or do I give voice to my fear that he will be targeted by some racist cop more easily because of his car? HIS CAR?For me, there is no blending the message. They deserve my specificity in expression of pride and praise. However, I am very concerned for their safety while wanting them to just enjoy their youth.
The duality of Blackness is having these debates with yourself about being happy when the world is such a sad place, especially for Black people, to exist. It’s sharing in the Black excellence that you get to witness and influence up close and personal while being reminded for the billionth time that Black lives don’t matter as much as the value of items inside stores or buildings that Black tax dollars helped to build. It’s the realization that the best you can hope for is to shield your young loved ones from racism for as long as possible.
The fear of being inauthentic
Many Black people have called for their white friends and colleagues to speak out about the injustice for various reasons. Some are trying to figure out where their white friends stand because they normally are silent when racial violence and its aftermath rears its head in America. Others want white people to speak up because we’re well experienced in needing a message to be “white-splained” in order for it to be heard, especially in corporate spaces. Some white people have stepped up to the request and I see so many of my Black friends feeling the need to thank them in a public forum for doing so and questioning their motives behind the scenes. The same with law enforcement friends. There is a call for them to comment and speak publicly about the unrest caused by their “brothers in blue” coupled with a need to thank them for speaking up or a disclaimer before denouncing police officers’ bad behavior.
Several Black political leaders and officials have been charged with “striking the right tone” and denouncing the riots as protesting began. Much of it hit like parents scolding all of the children when only one did something wrong.
I was angry about this, but kept talking myself out of speaking up. Why? Why was I paralyzed with the fear of my authentic voice, thoughts, opinions, and reactions? In having private conversations with friends, many of whom are other Black women, I discovered I am not alone in this. For far too long, we have been working overtime at being “more palatable” to American society by being silent or crafting statements that don’t offend. As an educated Black woman, our mandate seems to always be to carry the torch of inclusion, strike the right tone with a message of hope and peace publicly while pushing down our fears and placing our anger somewhere else — anywhere else but squarely on the shoulders of those who’ve caused it.
Black people — especially Black women (as I stare in the mirror),
We need to be done with our other full time job of making everyone else in this world comfortable with our power, voice, and presence. Let’s be done shrinking. Let’s be done acting like daughters and sons waiting to inherit diversity and inclusion when we are really the mothers and fathers of humanity.
White people and other POC,
If you have reached out and/or spoken out about the injustices that you are recognizing black people face every single day, great. You should. Your Black friends and colleagues are NOT okay. Our productivity is impacted, our physical and emotional health are impacted, and you need to pick up the slack with empathy, understanding, and actual work.
Other People of Color and White Women,
You are often the direct beneficiaries of what many Black people have sacrificed and died for. The fruits of our labor (i.e. Civil Rights Act) are what you make your morning smoothies from. Your words are the first steps, not the last. If you are wondering what you can do, ask and keep asking. Don’t shrink from having difficult conversations and listening to points of view and experiences that make you uncomfortable. Recognize we are uncomfortable every day.
Members of law enforcement,
We are tired of paying for you to kill people on live TV. You are equipped with thousands of dollars of training and a Batman belt full of weapons and tools, yet all you need to say to justify murdering citizens who pay your salaries is you feared for your life.
If you think of yourself as a good cop and are aware of the bad cops in your precinct, do what you want law abiding citizens to do when criminals act out in their presence: If you see something, say something. Weed them out. We pay you to do that, too.
Political leaders, especially Black political leaders,
STOP talking to protestors like they are your children. America cannot continue to oppress from the top down then expect leadership from the bottom up. Do your jobs, mayors, police chiefs, city council members, and state prosecutors — and do them in a timely fashion. These protests that spawn into rioting have a pattern. There is a double injustice that precedes them. A senseless murder + no justice equals the recipe for protests which often devolve into riots. Get to work and fix it, especially if you ran on a platform of reform and change.
Business leaders, especially Marketing leadership,
So many gaffes have been made during this time and I know exactly why. Look around your organization — especially your leadership. If you have no BLACK PEOPLE with influence that you can reference and partner with, then you can’t be surprised when your email, social media, and other marketing campaigns fall flat, get criticized, and your business is boycotted. There are so many qualified Black candidates who are not only happy to — but EXPECT to pull on their Black experience and help you avoid these missteps. But their voices are never heard because you won’t even interview let alone hire them.
Lastly, it is not easy to express fear, especially as a Black woman. We aren’t often believed when we express our humanity. At best, we are seen as strong, Alpha-like Wonder Women who can — and therefore, should — do, fix, solve, and clean up everything. At worst, we are viewed as angry villainesses with superhuman strength, always with an attitude and ill-intent. The truth is we are fully human women with lots to lose whether we choose to speak out or not. So, yes, I am afraid of mismanaging the duality of my Blackness. And, I am sometimes afraid of the sound of my authentic voice because the way this world is set up, it costs me something when I use it. However, I am most afraid of what the reality is for far too many Black people in America today — the fear of who I will become if one of these tragedies hits too close to home.
