If We Were Black We Would All Be Dead

My family loves to tell stories. Any family gathering is an opportunity to share and recount tales of grandeur and infamy. Some very fresh and many more old and tired, but so polished and refined that they can’t NOT be re-told just one more time. Perhaps with a few embellishments.

Now we are a typical upper-middle class white family, responsible people with clean records and good credit. BUT everyone in my family has a ‘story’ that makes their cheeks turn red. Most all of these involve a dalliance with the law. An illegal grow operation, re-delivering the neighborhood mail, a drunken motorcycle ride, stolen lunch trays for an impromptu sledding activity, a less drunk, more reckless motorcycle ride, to say nothing of, well the drugs, AND a completely *BS* arrest for an open container — which is still ridiculous by the way! Because there we were on a street in an upper middle class neighborhood and I was caught with a beer in my hand. I was angry and belligerent. I complained almost as much as Eric Garner did and certainly tried harder to talk my way out of it. And yet a few hours later I was home, embarrassed and ashamed, but no worse for the wear and no charges on my record.

That should have been Eric Garner’s story.

But it wasn’t.

It occured to me this morning that if my family had been black we could all be dead. Every one of those family encounters would have ended much differently if our skin had been a different color. If we hadn’t been friendly with the local chief of police, or wearing a ‘Georgetown’ sweater, or weren’t a polite diminutive white girl who didn’t know better.

I have been quietly supportive of the protesters and activities of those who are angry about what has happened in Ferguson, and Staten Island, and Cleveland and Sanford. ‘Quiet’ because I have other things to do. MY things to do. But I have come to the realization (and I hope you will too) that my ‘quiet support’ is no different than someone else's ‘quiet indifference’ and nearly identical to another’s ‘quiet racism’. The same quiet racism that killed Eric Garner.

My family looks back and laughs at embarassing stories. Families around this country grieve. A walk to get skittles, a second-hand cigarette sale…. If we were black, we’d all be dead.