Our communities are burning

Cities are burning. Our communities are burning. Our Black brothers and sisters are crying out in pain and we have failed to see it, hear it, or believe it. Many people say, “history repeats itself,” and if this seems reminiscent of the 60s uprisings, then you would be correct. 

I am a biracial woman and see myself as both Black and White. As I look at my White brothers and sisters, I see how we have continually failed the Black community. After we had already pushed our Black brothers and sisters into segregated federally supported housing, when White people left, we then stopped the upkeep and funding to the housing. After many rights were won, my White brothers and sisters turned a blind eye as the rights of Blacks were attacked by those in power. 

We moved all the jobs from their neighborhoods and continued to push our Black brothers and sisters into what we now deem essential work … but they don’t get paid as if they are essential. We then continued our disinvestment of their communities and schools. Then came the “war on drugs.” When White people fervently used cocaine, it was labeled as a substance abuse problem and users were given light sentences when they were caught. But when crack use increased in Black neighborhoods, users were treated as criminals who couldn’t take care of themselves.

We did nothing when policies targeted Black communities for drugs, arresting and locking up a generation of parents, framing them as “welfare queens” and “dangerous men”; yet, we caused the conditions. We allowed our politicians to continue the narrative that Black people are something to fear and made them into something subhuman so we could continue our assault on the Black body. That has resulted in the mass incarceration that continues to disproportionately target the Black community, especially for non-violent substance abuse issues. 

We failed the Civil Rights Movement. We failed to listen to Dr. King, instead whitewashing his efforts, when he was someone who was feared, hated and killed for his peaceful protest. Police brutality has long been a part of the narrative for Black people, and as it has continued to ravage the Black community for decades, we ignore it.

We ignored Rodney King. We ignored Amadou Diallo. We ignored Kendra James. We ignored Ronald Madison. We ignored Sean Bell. We ignored Ramarley Graham. We ignored Shereese Francis. We ignored Rekia Boyd. We ignored Jamar Clark. We ignored Yvette Smith. We ignored a child, Tamir Rice. We ignored Laquan McDonald. We ignored Eric Garner. We ignored Michael Brown Jr. We ignored Natasha McKenna. We ignored Freddie Gray. We ignored Brendon Glenn. We ignored Samuel DuBose. We ignored Gregory Gunn. We ignored Philando Castile. We ignored Alton Sterling and hundreds of other names over decades of abuse. And Colin Kaepernick used his power for a peaceful protest, but we vilified him—we vilified his love for a nation that hates him and we made him the enemy. We ignored his cry.  

What we see today is because we have done it wrong. We don’t want to see or hear the pain, if it makes us uncomfortable. We don’t want to see or hear the pain if it causes us to question what we know to be true. We don’t want to see or hear the pain if we could lose our power. 

Yet, here we are again, and despite all the ways we try to destroy Blackness in this country, I see how my Black community rises and perseveres because we are resilient people; but we cannot and should not have to bear this burden alone. We cannot continue to love and fight for a country that hates us. 

We, as a nation, are in a crucial moment, where we can choose to ignore and keep repeating the cycle of oppression, or we can wake up and seize this opportunity to finally Get. It. Right.  

We need to accept and acknowledge our nation’s racist past and present and honor the lives and trauma it has taken from us, so that a healing process can begin. As with any healing, boundaries have to be set. We can no longer pretend to be colorblind. We need to see color as it brings about real differences that affect our everyday life. We have to engage in anti-racist work. As Ibram X. Kendi said, there is “no such thing as ‘not racist,’” you are either racist or working to be anti-racist. Not racist is the continuing denial of the pain and cry of our Black brothers and sisters. 

We can no longer afford to ignore the policies designed to destroy the Black community. We can no longer allow for leaders who promote and vote for policies that further add and create disparate outcomes. We have to be willing to stand up and choose something different. We have to choose investment, we have to protect the vulnerable, we have to choose a future that is truly good for all Michiganders, so we can all have the opportunity to achieve the American dream without chains on our bootstraps. This is our wake-up call to listen, to learn and to finally get it right. The future of our state and our nation depends on it.