When issues of racial injustice and brutality rear their heads in our news, it’s not just another story to me. It’s not just another story to any black journalist. It’s salt on the wound of lived experiences, a resurfacing of fears that lie within every black person who lives in America. It’s a human rights issue that threatens my very being. I can’t be neutral and I can’t be silent.
Being a black journalist right now is challenging and rewarding. It is rewarding to be able to tell stories that give a glimpse into the black experience, even if just a little. It is challenging to feel the pain of repeated instances of injustice against my people. This is not just about George Floyd. This movement is about the injustice and discrimination endured by African Americans for centuries. This is about the experiences with racism that black people live through every single day. Each time I see or hear about another black person killed by the police or because of racial injustice, the same two memories of my father cross my mind. The first is a memory of an interaction my dad had with a white officer when I was a child. The officer humiliated my dad during a traffic stop while my mom and I were in the car. I think back to mom asking the officer to stop mistreating my dad and my dad yelling back at her, “Stop you’re going to get me killed.” I think back to a conversation I had with my dad years later as we recalled that incident following the death of Philando Castile, a black man who was shot to death by a police officer in front of his girlfriend and child during a traffic stop. He said, “I guess my life will just never be valued in this country. That could have been me.” My heart sank because I knew he was right. My dad is my hero, but I knew the world may never even view him as fully human.
I’ve cried several times over the past few weeks, seemingly out of nowhere. Like many other black people, I’m grieving over the deaths of men and women I never knew. We grieve like it was one of our own friends or family members killed, because we know at any moment it could be. Doing anything while black can be viewed as a death sentence. Jogging, driving, shopping at a store, even sleeping in our own bed at our own home. That’s why moments like these are so painful. It’s the anger over what is and the fear of what could be. When I see the videos of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arberry killed on tape…all I see is my dad, my brother, and my nephews in their place. When I think about Breonna Taylor, I think about myself.
I know all lives matter, but not all lives are threatened in this way. Black lives have been threatened on the basis of race and the perception of inferiority from the moment we were brought onto American soil 400 years ago. Black people have been brutalized, devalued, mocked, and shamed often with no repercussions for those who harm us. Make no mistake, the brutality we’ve seen this year is not new. It is simply caught on tape, so the world can no longer pretend it does not exist. So yes, we have to remind our nation that black lives do matter, because we’ve been treated like we don’t for so long.
What can you do to support black people in the quest for the rights and respect we’ve so long been denied? You can empathize. I think one of the biggest problems that plagues our nation is an inability to step outside of self and care about problems that do not directly impact us. If everyone could just do that alone, the world would be a better place. If you’re ignorant about systemic racism and injustice, you can learn. There are thousands of resources on the internet, in books, and within documentaries that discuss the black experience and racism in America. Choose not to be ignorant. Educate yourself so that you can educate others. Let me be clear, you cannot be neutral in this situation. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Please be a part of the solution. Start potentially uncomfortable conversations with people you know. Be just as hungry for a better future as we are. Help America write a new story, one where black people’s lives are finally viewed as equal, one where we can truly be free.
Breana Ross 