I lost a friend last night. I had known her for 7 years.
By the end of our conversation it was painfully clear we were never really friends...more of acquaintances, I suppose.
And our only point of agreement may have been that- NO, apparently I never really knew her at all. If I had, I realized I wouldn't have liked her much, and certainly would have never considered her a friend. It was sad.
I should have got a clue years back when she referred to me as her "white" friend. You see, it would have never dawned on me to refer to any of my friends by their skin color...or their religious persuasion. I don't introduce someone as ________________ my _______________ friend.
(okay...maybe years back I used the word DRUNK...but that was just once, Jake, let it go...)
It is not a matter of being PC. Back in the day we didn't call it being politically correct, anyway.
We called it "manners".
But I digress.
I made the mistake of trying to discuss the shootings deaths of the two young black men this week (horrid and completely unjustified in my opinion) and the five Dallas police officers (also horrible and completely unjustified in my opinion).
The conversation devolved quickly.
The random shootings of two black males, in her opinion was completely unjustified. Executions. I agreed fully.
The random killings of 5 police officers who only moments before were helping serve and protect a Black Lives Matter peaceful protest...she deemed Deserved. Because their skin happened to be white and they were wearing a blue uniform. And the shooter was A Victim of White Oppression.
WTH???? Seriously????
Then she turned on me with the whole White Privilege sermon and at one point in the by-now-heated conversation used the words YOUR KIND...to describe me. And that white people really couldn't ever understand. That I just didn't "get it".
My KIND????
"Not Get It???"
"White Privilege?"
Yeah...this conversation is done, okay.
Somehow she could see how horrible and unjust it was for (as she called them) Her People.
Timothy McVeigh, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson, all white...but never really considered MY PEOPLE, okay?
But she couldn't quite make that giant leap that the five officers who were killed were selected by the color of their skin as well, just as hate filled and randomly...and also left behind widows and children who were going to have their lives turned upside down. That their children would grieve the same tears as Sterling's children. Or Castiles' girlfriend or his family.
Tears of grief over hateful senseless killings aren't black or white. They are colorless.
I grew up in the 60's-70's. It was an amazing time. Our Generation (well most of us) were all about love and unity. We (both black and white) had grown up in households full of racism/prejudice and swore that we would not live that way. We would not raise our children that way. That people weren't the color of their skin but (to paraphrase Dr. King) their character. Their values.
We swore to raise the next generation this way.
Many of us succeeded.
We believed in a world where you could be Black or White or Yellow or Red, Christian or Jewish, Buddhist or Baptist, Catholic or Wiccan, Atheist or Agnostic, Straight or Gay...Able Bodied or Disabled, Heavy or Thin or somewhere in between...and nobody cared.
Nobody judged on such superficial matters.
(I can hear you thinking YEAH RIGHT...and rolling your eyes...Congratulations...you are part of the problem, then)
Face it. Anybody can say
Poor Me...I'm ____________________.
Anyone can fill in that blank. Disabled, Gay, A Woman, Fat, Jewish, et al....and yes...even Black or White.
(...and if you happen to be a disabled, fat, black, Jewish, lesbian woman...well i guess you are pretty much screwed...)
You can scream to the heavens how unfair life is, how you are being oppressed, kept down, victimized.
The fact of the matter is that you ARE being victimized. By yourself.
Self-Victimization.
And it is going to continue until you stop using whatever crutch you are holding on to and decide to STOP being The Victim.
There will probably always be bigots and racists. Prejudiced people. But we don't have to let them define us. We don't have to play the role they try to hand us. When we let them destroy the good person we could otherwise be...well...you might as well slip a slave collar and shackles on yourself. Because you're wearing them.
I understand my former friend's concerns. I really do. She worries that one day an officer much like the one who shot Sterling or Castile may end up shooting a daughter, son, or family member of her own over the color of his or her skin.
I have sons. Three of them. My eldest is covered in tattoos...as is his wife. I know that there are many people out there who see their piercings and tattoos and immediately "judge" them based on it. Thugs/Gangsta. Trash. Never knowing one thing about them. ( They are both loving and caring, hard working, and great parents...who happen to love tattoos ) Replace Trayvon Martin with my skinny tattoo covered "white boy" son...put a hoodie on him and send him through an upscale gated neighborhood late at night (skittles and iced tea optional) and some over-zealous Zimmerman Wanna Be might shoot him, as well.
I have worried over it, too.
We need to stand together (all of us) and fight injustice...instead of fighting between ourselves and creating more division.
Otherwise (as Pogo says)
"We have met the enemy...and he is US"
