Recent events of senseless violence have our nation in a tailspin. Two days ago a man was killed by a police officer for no good reason 2.5 miles from our home. The extremely chilling video of the traffic stop-turned-murder has been broadcast again and again and again and I will never un-see it. I also heard that in this man's 33 years of life, he had encountered the police something like 80 times, and 50 of those times all charges had been dropped (and the other times he was charged with extremely petty violations). And despite the fact that society just kept assuming the worst about him, he worked as a public servant, serving lunch to elementary school kids in our neighborhood.
These apparent acts of racism, fear, distrust, and entitlement bring me straight back to the anger and deep sadness I felt after reading the book Between the World and Me earlier this year. The countless injustices and the plight of violence that black Americans face every day are a product of racism so embedded that even well-intentioned people don't recognize their role in it. Until white people see that we are perpetuating truly inhumane systems and begin holding each other accountable for creating more equitable ones, our nightly news will continue to be flooded with images of families and communities being torn apart.
To read excerpts from Between the World and Me from a previous post on this blog, click here.
