It isnt about looting or a grand jury verdict, its about an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness that affects many black people. Said hopelessness can bubble over and become rage. Ive said this same thing in a few peoples newsfeeds over the last couple of days. This isnt about someone wanting to steal some bauble from a store or to break a window. This is about a community - many communities - that feel powerless in their own lives. Communities that feel like at any moment they could lose everything without question or concern. That fear is driven from multiple angles. That fear and that feeling of being out-of-control can fill a person up. When it bubbles over, you get a lashing out, an attempt to exert *some* kind of control on the world around you. Far too often, a person in that position doesnt truly understand healthy ways to process these feelings of hopelessness. So they throw a rock, and the rock goes where they want it to, and for a few brief seconds, they are in control of their own lives. Only sometimes its not a rock. Sometimes its a fist, or a bullet. This entire situation in Ferguson is a snowball of tragedies, each building upon the last, rather than revealing anything about them. Everyone is looking for someone to blame instead of someone to talk to about their fears. Blaming someone is easy for *both* sides to do. Blaming gives us a resolution to our fears. It allows us to label them and to neatly compartmentalize them into a single, identifiable place. That is the thing I was afraid of, but now its been dealt with so I dont need to feel afraid anymore. Unlike blaming, speaking openly about our collective fears is difficult. Were scared and we feel hopeless because it only takes one time for a person to act out a tired stereotype - whether its a young thug with something to prove or a power-tripping authority figure with something to prove - for us to get hurt. *One time* for someone to throw a rock, or a fist, or a bullet. One time for us to lose everything. Its okay to be afraid, and its okay to talk to people about those fears. The only way to get rid of them is to lay them out on the table where everyone can see them and understand them - and ultimately, hopefully, to discuss them. Ferguson scares me because families are in hiding, a kid is dead, a city is on fire, and still no one seems to even care about listening to each other.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 04:44:07 +0000
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