Trading Fictional Heroes for Real Heroics
If there were a Hall of Fame for awful years, by June 2020 was already a strong contender. With the July death of civil rights giant John Lewis, it’s now a shoo-in.
The year started promisingly: I was headed to a literary festival in Asia to launch my debut novel. News of a virus becoming a pandemic put paid to those plans. The festival was scrubbed, the book launch reset to summer and I returned to Seattle, mask on and braced for the pandemic’s spread. All spring, we hunkered down. Then 2020’s second catastrophe struck: the killing of George Floyd.
By early June, an unprecedented percentage of Americans, including 71% of White people — were finally believing Black voices — and their testimonies — about being indiscriminately targeted and killed by police officers.
At a #SilentMarch in mid-June, Black Lives Matter issued a challenge to the 60,000 Seattle attendees: what were we willing to do to sustain the movement? In the days following that powerful demonstration, I struggled with the call to action: what could I, a white woman, contribute apart from political pressure and voting?
My novel tells the fictional story of a Black man who is not believed before the Pearl Harbor attacks, resulting in thousands of avoidable American deaths. Following Floyd’s death and Breonna Taylor’s and so many others, I concluded we need to focus on amplifying the real, agonized Black voices of our times.
What could I do to sustain the movement?
I could suspend the rescheduled launch of my book. Instead of spending months devoted to virtual book talks, social media posts and podcast interviews with the goal of amplifying the fictional Black historical hero I devised, I could leave space for the real Black people currently engaged in herculean effort to change America.
Today August 1 is in fact the day Rumors From Shanghai was to have been officially released. Instead of conducting a book launch party via Zoom, I attended a Zoom meeting with four young African American #BlackLivesMatter activists discussing a mass action project I am organizing. It’s not a #BLM project, but as is the case of so much in our society, it involves an issue in which Black Americans are disproportionately affected.
The perspicacity, commitment and resolve these young people manifested was humbling. With their lives in upheaval through the pandemic and the crisis of excessive policing of Black people, when their professional ambitions are on hold, they are devoting considerable time and talent to the hard work of tackling systemic racism.
One of the participants asked me and my co-organizer, also a white woman, whether we were prepared to be uncomfortable as we pursue our project. Such a good question! And, truly, it’s the question for white people to ask ourselves in this moment: are we prepared to put some of our dreams on hold, to put our ease to the side to support the #BLM movement?
Withdrawing my novel from its planned launch is a meager contribution as compared with these activists’. Nevertheless, I am raising my voice to say, ‘yes, I will put my dream on hold’ in recognition of what our society needs to do. I will do it humbly and in a spirit of appreciation for the investments Black Americans are making to improve a society that has been so begrudging in its appreciation of their talents and needs.
If we who are white approve of the #BLM movement’s aims, but remain silent, then when the movement encounters inevitable challenges or setbacks, it will be easier for opponents and the media to frame them as a failure of Black people. In the battle against racism, as Robin Diangelo notes, “[o]ur [white] voices, our part in this has been missing for all too long.” White people must speak out about the tools — large and small — we are using to chisel away at the boulder of racism crushing our society. We, too, must be accountable for the success and challenges of the #BLM movement.
Maybe then some good can come out of this really bad year.
Amy Sommers is from Seattle, Washington. She pursued a career as a China-focused lawyer and in her 25 years practicing law, worked for over a decade in Shanghai, China.
