In an open letter to a country in crisis, journalist Jimmie Briggs invites white Americans of good conscience and faith to march with the black community—and with each other
All week I have been sitting in front of the television, rocking our newborn daughter to sleep. I have been watching the drama in the darkened living room. And the characters, like well-rehearsed actors in a stale play, have been hitting their marks all too well.
The baby I hold is just three weeks old, all seven pounds and change of her. She slumps down into the crook of my right arm while my free left hand switches between cable-news channels. Since May 25, I have been riveted and repulsed by the nocturnal scenes of the teleplay ostensibly inspired by the suffocation of George Floyd. Alternating between sucking on her pacifier and partially spitting it out, she stares in my direction through sleepy, half-closed eyes.
White America has always told us that things will be different “after this one.” Or, “This death marks a turning point.” It rings, rings, rings too hollow. For more than 500 years—Native Americans longer—black people in America have only had our faith to carry us through the dehumanization of enslavement, the broken promise of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the war on drugs, and even this new “war on COVID-19.
To my white friends, colleagues, coworkers, allies, neighbors, and loved ones, I ask, “Are you okay?” Because in your asking me that question, I can only presume that you have finally begun grappling with “Great-Again America,” an America based on a system of white supremacy defended through violence, patriarchy, and devaluation of all peoples who are not white. Please don’t promise us that George Floyd’s death is different.
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