\u201cI can\u2019t\u2026 I just can\u2019t look.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These words have spewed out of my mouth all too many times\nin the past few weeks as I\u2019ve been shown a video of another person of color\nbeing murdered by law enforcement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I feel a juxtaposition of emotions as I watch each time-\nboth of shame, for my cowardice in even wanting to witness the brutality, and\nof sorrow- true, unadulterated frustration. Sadness. But I am just one white\ngirl who has never been on the receiving end of this kind of hatred first-hand.\nI\u2019ve never had to think about it before walking out of my front door in the\nmorning. I\u2019ve never had to live with the low lying risk and heartache and\nfrustration every single day of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reality is, as a person with white skin, I can feel\nwhatever I want to, I can acknowledge an urge to DO something to try and \u201cfix\u201d\nit. I can get angry; I can post all of the powerful quotes on social media. I\ncan feel, do, march, even take action. But because of my skin tone, I will never\ntruly<\/em> understand what it is like to live life day to day as a person\nwith dark skin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The amount of tears I cry or the intensity of the anger I\nfeel rising inside of me will not change that fact. I grew up without fear of\nothers and their judgments. I have lived my life free of the worry that I would\nbe met with acts of violence for merely \u201clooking\u201d a certain way or because of\nthe amount of pigmentation in my blood. I can\u2019t even tell you of a time when\nsomeone looked at me and made a negative judgement about my character based\nsolely off of the shade of my skin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We will never understand, not in the same way at least. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was in the sixth grade when I first felt that lack of\nunderstanding. It hit me like a ton of bricks as I sat in the plastic chair\nconnected to a metal desk in front of me. This was the first time that I had\nmoved out of my predominantly white suburban elementary school to a middle\nschool that was further into the city. Our desks were shaped in a semi-circle.\nThe empty seat next to me was filled by a girl who had dark skin. I had only\nknown one, maybe two students before who were not white like I was. As we began\ntalking and sharing about ourselves, I remember distinctly the question she\nasked me, \u201cDo you even know what a ghetto is?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I turned red, looked down, and audibly answered \u201cno.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo.\u201d I had no idea what a ghetto was. But she did.\nShe lived that word and felt all of its implications day after day; the lack of\nall things easy, nothing having been given to her freely. The cycle that had\nbegun with oppression and continued through difficult circumstances outside of\nher control engulfed her. She scoffed, (as she had every right to), and turned\nback to her friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In that moment, as a twelve year old in a new school,\nI felt confused and ashamed, but I wasn\u2019t even sure what I felt ashamed about\nat the time. Now, I know. I was privileged. PRIVILEGED. I had everything in\nlife up to that point handed to me, with everyone believing that I could do\nwhatever I put my mind to, believing that I had the best of intentions no\nmatter what I was doing. Privileged doesn\u2019t have to mean that I was cocky or\narrogant. At least I hope I wasn\u2019t. But I was absolutely, positively, one\nhundred percent privileged, as I am now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She didn\u2019t have that privilege- to have things laid\nout for her or to have others believe the best in her ALL the time. She was\nfaced with the reality of the brokenness of our systems and our authorities\nevery day. She understood- I didn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Things weren\u2019t right then, and they aren\u2019t right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, in college, I was appointed the \u201csunshine chair\u201d\nof my sorority. In fact, the older girls in charge created the position for me.\nOkay, I know. The sixth-grade girl with pressed clothes and perfect hair grows\nup to be sunshine chair of her sorority. (I promise it was not all quite<\/em>\nthat superficial). In this sorority\nhouse, in one of the largest state schools in the country, with one of the\nlargest and most predominant Greek systems, every member was white. The kitchen\nstaff (which some of the older alums still referred to as \u201cthe help\u201d) were\nblack. I saw, dimly, the blatantly separate, racially fueled traditions that\nhad carried on, but didn\u2019t speak up. No one talked about it. It was just how it\nwas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I grew to love the sorority\u2019s kitchen staff,\nparticularly the head chef, as one of the most genuinely kind women I\u2019d ever\nknown. Since I ended up living in the sorority house, I got to know her very\nwell. One of the things that I enacted as \u201csunshine chair\u201d was to put a little\nmailbox that I had bought from Hobby Lobby and decorated (again, I know), in\nthe snack room as a place that people could write encouraging notes to the\nkitchen staff to say thank you for all of the work they do for us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I, along with several others, wrote notes to them\nperiodically, which they found and received as small pieces of recognition for\nthe ways that they would go out of their way to love us, which they did, every\nsingle day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, I was approached by the president of the\nsorority to tell me that one of the members had written some horrible racist\nremarks on paper- anonymously of course- and left them in the mailbox.\nSomething to the effect of \u201cYou —–s need to get out, your kind isn\u2019t welcome\nhere.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I immediately went to the kitchen and with heaves of\nfrustration, apologized to the woman who had shown us all only grace and love.\nWith tears in my eyes, I told her that I can\u2019t imagine how someone could have\ndone that. In that moment, she looked at me with eyes of pure kindness that seemed<\/em>\nto say, \u201cI know, Morgan. It hurts. But you have so much to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, she hugged me. She<\/em> hugged me.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n This woman, who had just been sorely mistreated, who\nhad been beaten down by words of hatred while only loving and working\ntirelessly day in and day out- hugged me, the ignorant white girl who only\nreceived. She saw my blindness, apathy, lack of awareness, and loved me as I\nwas, even then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The one who had been broken by the system and\nmisjudged her whole life for something that wasn\u2019t fair- gave undeserved love\nto someone who didn\u2019t look like her. She had every reason to throw in the\ntowel, cuss everyone out, and leave. Our organization would have been all the\nworse off for it and it would have been deserved. But instead, she told me that\nshe had gone out to her car, turned up some gospel music, and sang. That\u2019s<\/em>\nhow she responded, and the mere fact that she had to do that on that day\ndisplays what\u2019s wrong in our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way that she responded- the way that she hugged\nme, with the kind of hug that you can only remember in feelings and cannot be\nexplained in words- that is the gospel. <\/em>That is how I hope to see others\nin the midst of the racial tension that is thickening ever so frequently.\nJustice will ultimately be served by the God of the Universe, but it is our\nduty to stand up now and speak, to see, to pay attention. We must think about\nhow people who don\u2019t look like us feel, particularly if the ones who look\ndifferent are the ones who are being victimized and brutally murdered without\njust cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These days, when a story like George Floyd\u2019s emerges\nin the news, I don\u2019t feel the anger solely due to the indecency to humanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I now think about the implications within our\nimmediate family. I think about our son. Our beautiful son who joined our\nfamily through domestic adoption. I have many regrets about how I have handled\nracial injustice and pervasive racial inequity up to this point. I know that I\nwill never be a perfect mother to him. But I know that I can take the immense\nprivilege of being his mom, and realize how much the stakes are raised for me\nin stewarding his life because of the color of his skin. I will always have\nmore to learn, and I will never fully understand what it is like to be him-\nwhat he will experience as he grows up in our country. That fact is not lost on\nme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know; however, that I can be educated. I can take\nsteps to make sure he is seen and heard and known exactly as he is, by others\nwith a similar heritage. I can honor him for the beauty of his ancestry. I can\nadvocate against \u201ccolor blindness.\u201d I can hold his hand through every twist and\nturn. I can politely refute people who say that we are \u2018good people\u2019 or \u2018must have\nit figured out\u2019 because our child has darker skin than us. Those things do not\ncorrelate, and we have that much MORE to figure out given the intersection of\nour lives with his. Our love for him will propel us forward, as will the lives\nof the ones around us who do not share our skin tone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I will<\/em> watch each video of police brutality, each\nmurder, each act of unjust violence as it comes across my phone or tv screen.\nBecause it is the reality of the time we live in. And our children deserve for\nus to be aware of the injustice and do what we can to face it head on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n White friends, I urge you to take a look at your\npast, your present, and your future. Where can you shift your thinking, where\ncan you go to become more aware? How can you humbly accept your privilege, and your\ndeep set biases that you may not have realized were even there? <\/p>\n\n\n\n And then, let\u2019s talk. Please. Because it is what we need to be talking about. For George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor. For all the ones who came before them and are to come- we owe them our conversation, our intention, our love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo by Feliphe Schiarolli<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI can\u2019t\u2026 I just can\u2019t look.\u201d These words have spewed out of my mouth all too many times in the past few weeks as I\u2019ve been shown a video of another person of color being murdered by law enforcement. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,6,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426,"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganburkewrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}