Ferguson

I know that I have had a lot to say about Ferguson, I'm fatigued and I know just about everyone is. However, I see different kinds of fatigue: those who are fighting for justice for Michael Brown (most of who have been fighting this since they were born), and those of us who have joined with them... we see it as a fight for fairness and justice and have a hard time understanding why that is so hard to impart. The other fatigue is for those who want to go back to their comfortable, oblivious bubbles and just want everyone to shut up already.... we've discussed it, can we be done now?!

I lived in St. Louis for the first 21 years of my life, growing up in Florissant, right next to Ferguson. In retrospect, I can recognize the bubble of privilege in which I was raised. I didn't have to worry about being followed around stores or being judged because of my skin color. I had several black friends and I just didn't notice problems.  We really didn't talk about race, we were just friends, kids hanging out.  Those were good times.

The first even that started to raise my awareness was when my close black friend, who was also male told me that he had to work twice as hard as the white people around him to earn his full ride scholarship to a state university. He is brilliant, moreso than I could ever hope to be, and deserved every penny of that scholarship... and he had to work twice as hard to earn it, what sort of message is that about equality?  That same friend and I also went to visit a mutual friend going to school in eastern Indiana, our Moms were worried about us travelling together, but mine didn't bother to tell me about it until after we got back.  I really didn't understand, I was that oblivious.  We were friends heading off on an adventure, period, end of story, in my mind.  Now I understand much better that racism exists, but I still don't understand why.

My biggest frustration, as I intimated earlier, is trying to get across to other white people that they need to really listen and open up their eyes, to stop seeing what it is to be a person of color in this country from the privileged perspective of being white.  A scary thing that was brought up by a friend and echoed on the media is the fear that persons of color worry about whether their young men will reach adulthood without being killed or incarcerated....and I was accused of it being rhetoric. That doesn't sound like equality to me or something that you can blame on those experiencing it.

We have to embrace discomfort and start asking the hard questions of "Why?"  We have to look at ourselves and our own assumptions and accept that some of the stuff we have been taught is a lie that whitewashes the truth.  The very fabric of our country has deeply woven racist threads, from even earlier than the infamous 3/5 solution.

I believe it is very human to choose to go where we find comfort, but taking some comforts for granted just hurts us all.