In the summer of 2020, I attended protest after protest carrying a sign that stated "White Silence = Violence." I wasn't staying silent. I was standing up for justice and against racism. I was marching, reading, conversing, writing. Although I stopped hitting the streets that fall, I kept the momentum up with book clubs, study groups, discussions with friends who watched documentaries with me, with this blog. And then I fell silent. The book clubs faded away. I stopped reading. I stopped writing.
Yesterday, white supremists and the alt-right got the green light to go ahead and shoot us. To come to a peaceful protest heavily armed, incite violence, claim self-defense, and commit murder. Today, white BLM activists feel just an iota of what it is like to be black in America. I went to my first protest today in about 14 months. I felt re-energized for this work but I also realized that my silence was the white silence I claimed to be "violence" all last summer. My white privilege allowed me to step away from this work, to stay silent, to quit learning, to quit writing, to pretend that racism wasn't there, that I wasn't part of a racist system. I saw a sign at the protest today that said "Tolerating Racism is Racism" and it hit me to the core. Is my silence over these past few months a tolerance of racism? Is my white silence the violence I protested against?
Today we marched for Anthony and Jo Jo, two white BLM protesters like me, shot in Kenosha whose killer walked away free yesterday. Today, a wonderful young black woman, a leader in the People's Revolution put it so well - "They have been telling us all along that Black lives don't matter. Yesterday, they told us that when you stand with us, your white lives don't matter either." It shouldn't have to hit that close to home, to hit me so hard, for me to speak up again, for me to be active in this work. Today and every day Black lives matter and it is my responsibility to not stay silent and continue the fight until all lives really do matter. That's why I am forever the waking white and never woke. I know I can revert to my cocoon of white privilege where it is comfortable and safe. I have been silent, I am complicit in systemic racism, I am guilty as charged.
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